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BY JACKSON GREGORY 


TIMBER-WOLF 

THE EVERLASTING WHISPER 

DESERT VALLEY 

MAN TO MAN 

LADYFINGERS 

THE BELLS OF SAN JUAN 

JUDITH OF BLUE LAKE RANCH 


CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 




TIMBER-WOLF 


•V 






J 

TIMBER-WOLF 


/ 

BY / 

JACKSON 9 REGORY 

Author of THE EVERLASTING WHISPER, 

DESERT VALLEY, etc, 

5 J * , 

CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 

NEW YORK :: :: 1923 

















TC 


Copyright, 1923, by 
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS 


Copyright, 1923, by Doubleday, Page & Company 
Printed in the United States of America 


Published August, 1923 






TO SUE 


AS JULIANITO WOULD SAY! ‘GOOD FOR 
PASS THE TIME AWAY ! ’ ” 





TIMBER-WOLF 


CHAPTER I 

Big Pine, tiny human outpost set well within the 
rim of the great southwestern wilderness country, was, 
like other aloof mountain settlements of its type, a 
place of infinite and monotonous quiet during most 
days of most years. Infrequently, however, for one 
reason or another, and at times seemingly for no reason 
whatever, came days of excitement. And, as those who 
knew the place said, when the denizens of Big Pine 
bestirred themselves into excitement they were never 
content until they skyrocketed into the seventh heaven 
of turbulence. The old-timers recalled how, back in ’82, 
a dog fight in front of the Gallup House started a 
riot; in spite of the dictum that it takes only two dogs 
to make a fight, the two owners present entered with 
fine esprit into the thing, and before nightfall men were 
carrying sawed-off shotguns and some of the oldest 
and wisest citizens had dug themselves in as for a state 
of siege. 

This latest furore in and about Big Pine, however, 
had for cause an incident which since time was young 
has electrified both more and less sedate communities. 
True, it had begun with a fight; men, not dogs; yet it 
was what chance spilled from the torn coat pocket of 
one of them that transmuted slumbrous quiet into pan¬ 
demonium. It was fitting that the Gallup House, centre 
of local activities, was the scene of the affair. 

A mongrel sort of a man, one Joe Nunez, known by 


2 


TIMBER-WOLF 


everybody as Mexicali Joe, came in and demanded 
corn whiskey and paid for it on the spot. That in it¬ 
self was interesting; Joe seldom had money. For twenty 
years he had been content to have his wife support him 
while he combed the ridges, always prospecting, always 
begging grub-stakes, always spending the winters telling 
what he would do, come spring. To-night, looking tired 
and dirty, he was triumphant. He spent his silver dollars 
with a flourish, and an onlooker, laughing, announced 
that Joe must have stolen his wife’s money. Joe resented 
the accusation with dignity; he knew what he knew; he 
wagged his head and stared insolently and tossed off his 
drink in solemn silence. Thereafter he dropped innu¬ 
endoes while he had his second drink. The man, Bamy 
McCuin, who had badgered him in the first place, care¬ 
lessly called him a liar. Joe, who had accepted the 
familiar epithet a thousand times in his life, for once 
bridled up and spat back. From so small a matter 
grew the fight. 

Onlookers laughed and were amused, taking no serious 
stock in the fracas because it appeared inevitable that 
in half a dozen minutes big Bamy McCuin would have 
Mexicali Joe whimpering and apologetic. But it chanced 
that as Barny flung the smaller man about, the Mexi¬ 
can’s coat pocket was torn and from it spilled a handful 
of raw gold. Men pounced upon the scattered bits of 
quartz, Barny among them; they caught it up and 
stared from one another to Joe, who became suddenly 
quiet and tense and alert. Then a great shout rumbled 
up: 

‘‘Gold!” 

And that was the one word which set all Big Pine 
ablaze. Here, on the fringe of a gold-mining country, 
which the latter years had all but worn out, there had 
been made that fresh discovery which every man of 


TIMBER-WOLF 


3 

them always kept somewhere in the bottom of his mind 
as a possibility for himself. 

Gallup, called ‘‘Young Gallup,’^ simply because he 
was the son of “Old Gallup,’' who had gone to his last 
rest twenty-five years ago, was a man eminently capa¬ 
ble of dealing swiftly with unexpected situations; he 
did not know the meaning of tact, but he did under¬ 
stand force. This was his house and here his word was 
law; he broke into the room at the first outcry, took in 
everything with one flick of his black eyes, and issued his 
orders. 

“Hand that stuff over,” he commanded the men who 
still held bits of the Mexican’s specimens. “It belongs 
to Joe, and no man’s going to be robbed here under my 
nose, Mex or White.” 

The look which Mexicali Joe shot at his protector had 
in it far more of suspicion than of gratitude. But his 
grimy fingers were eager enough in snatching back the 
pieces of quartz from reluctant palms. Grown sullen, 
he returned to his corn whiskey, drinking slowly, and 
holding his tongue. When men asked him the inevita¬ 
ble quick questions he either shrugged impatiently or 
ignored them altogether. They looked at one another, 
and an understanding sprang up on the instant between 
big Barny McCuin and some of the others. Presently 
Barny went out, followed by the men who had caught 
his glance. Young Gallup, with eyes narrowing and 
growing darker, watched them go. 

“They’ll get you outside, Joe,” he said bluntly. 
‘‘And they’ll make you open up for all you know.” 

Joe shifted imeasily; in his heart he knew himself for 
a poor fool caught up between the devil, which was 
Gallup, and the deep sea. 

Besides the proprietor and the Mexican there were now 
but three men left in the room. One of them was 


4 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Gallup’s man, who cooked, did chores, and, when need 
was, helped with the still and served drinks. At a look 
from his employer he left the room. Of the others, one 
was old man Parker, an ancient to be despised because 
feebleness made of him a negligible quantity in any affair 
based upon the prowess of physical manhood; the 
second was a youngster who stood in awe of Gallup 
and who looked ill at ease as the hotel man stared at 
him. 

“Better beat it, Tim,” said Gallup. “And take old 
Parker along.” 

“But, look here, Gallup; you ain’t got any right . . 

“It’s my house,” said Gallup. “There’s going to be 
no crooked work here and you know it. Joe goes clear. 
If he wants to talk later on, why, then he can come 
out and talk with you boys outside. You know you’ll 
find Barny and his friends not so far away.” 

Tim’s self-pride, unimportant as it was, perked up at 
the realization that Gallup was actually discussing a 
matter of import with him. He tried to play the man. 

“You want to get him all alone!” 

Gallup sighed. 

“You make me sick,” he grunted disgustedly. “Now 
shut up and clear out. You, too, Parker. It’s closing 
time anyhow.” 

“I seen, didn’t I?” clucked the old man, tapping 
nervously on the bare floor with his peeled willow staff. 
“ It was gold! Joe’s stuck his pick into the mother lode! 
Ain’t I always told you young fools ...” 

Gallup, patient no longer, caught him by the thin 
old arm and jerked him to the door, thrusting him out 
and unheeding the querulous protests. Then he swung 
about upon the younger man. 

“On your way, Tim,” he commanded. 

There was that in his voice which discouraged argu- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


5 


ment. For Gallup, in the full power of his strength, a 
big man and heavy and hard, was suddenly flaming with 
anger and the two great fists were lifting from his sides. 
Tim, muttering, hastened after old Parker; behind him 
the oak door was slammed and the bolt shot into its 
socket. He broke into a run, seeking Barny McCuin 
and the others. 

Gallup strode straight back to Mexicali Joe, clamping 
a ponderous hand upon the shoulder which sought futilely 
to jerk free. 

‘‘Spit it out, Joe,’^ he ordered. “Where’d that come 
from 

“You let me go! I ain’t workin’ for you. You ain’t 
my boss. What I got, she’s mine! Now I goin’ home.” 

Gallup, still holding him with one hand, probed at 
him with his eyes, seeking to fathom what powers of 
determination and stubborness lay within a mongrel 
soul. Joe looked frightened; there were beads of sweat 
on his forehead, stealing downward from under his black 
matted hair. But there was in his look the glint of des¬ 
perate defiance. . . . Gallup called softly: 

“Hey, Ricky; come here.” 

His combination cook and chore man returned through 
the inner door with an alacrity which must have told 
his employer that he had never stirred a step from the 
threshold. He, like the others, was on fire with sud¬ 
denly stimulated greed. 

“Go get Taggart,” said Gallup, his eye all the time on 
Joe. “ Slip out the back way and go quiet. He’s down 
at his cabin. I want him here in a hurry.” 

Ricky, though with obvious reluctance, withdrew. 
Once out of sight, however, he ran as fast as he could, 
anxious to be back with no loss of time. 

“Taggart?” muttered Joe. “What for? For why 
you send for him ?” 


6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


** Why does a man generally send for him coimtered 
Gallup dryly. ‘‘Know who he is, don’t you, Joe 

“Sure, I know! But I ain’t done nothin’. I ain’t 
no t’ief. This is mine.” 

“Thief ?” Gallup having repeated the word thought¬ 
fully, said it a second time: Thief! I hadn’t thought 
of that.” 

“Let me go,” cried Joe. With a sudden fierce jerk 
he broke free and started to the door. 

But Gallup, shaking his head, was at his side like a 
flash. He thrust the Mexican aside and stood with his 
heavy square shoulders against the oak panel. Joe, by 
now trembling with fury, slipped a hand into his shirt. 
But before the hastening fingers could close about the 
sheath-knife which Gallup knew well enough they sought, 
Gallup drew back a heavy fist and struck the Mexican 
full in the face. Joe went staggering across the room and 
fell, his battered lips writhing back from his teeth. 
Again his hand went into his shirt. Gallup ran across 
the room and stood over him, one heavy boot drawn back 
threateningly. 

“Make one more move like that,” he said coolly, 
“and I’ll smash my boot heel in your dirty mouth.” 

Outside, grouped expectantly in the middle of the 
road, Barny McCuin and his friends, joined by old man 
Parker and Tim, alternately speculated in quiet voices 
and watched for the door to open and Joe to come forth. 
Tim, in his anger and excitement, called them crazy 
fools; he warned them that Young Gallup, left alone 
with Joe, would be making some deal with the Mexican 
and that, if they were only half men they would come 
along of him and smash the door off and get in on what¬ 
ever was happening. But Tim was only a boy and 
talked more than he acted; the others, knowing Young 


TIMBER-WOLF 


7 

Gallup as they had cause to know him, hesitated to 
grow violent at his door. Gallup, defending his own 
property, would just as gladly pour a double-barrel 
shotgun load of buckshot into them as he would turn 
up a bottle of bootleg. They were not ready for murder 
and told Tim to shut up and keep his eye peeled. 

But there was not a patient man among them, and 
to-night was no time for any man’s patience. When 
they had waited as long as they could, perhaps half an 
hour, they turned back to Gallup’s door, Barny leading 
the way and knocking loudly. In return came Gallup’s 
voice, untroubled and cool. 

^‘Locked up for the night,” he said. And then, care¬ 
lessly: ‘‘What do you want, boys?” 

McCuin simulated laughter. 

“That’s a good one. Gal. All we want is a chat with 
Joe. And . . .” 

“Joe’s gone,” returned Gallup. He came to the door 
and opened it, his lamp in hand. “Went about half an 
hour ago; just after you boys did. Out the back way 
and on the run!” He laughed. “Guess he’s foxy 
enough to make a circle around you dubs. Oh, come 
in and look if you think I’m lying to you.” 

He stepped aside and let them come in. They knew 
that he was lying and they saw from his eyes that he 
understood that they were not fools enough to take 
him at his word. Yet Joe had gone. In that Gallup 
had told the truth; the lie lay in what he concealed. 

“Where did he go ?” demanded Tim earnestly. 

Gallup jeered at him. “If I knew I’d tell you, 
wouldn’t I, Timmy ? Most likely where little boys like 
you ought to be by now. Meaning in bed, Timmy 
dear.” 

In time they went away; by now, drawn close together 
by a common burning desire, they were resolved into a 


8 


TIMBER-WOLF 


committee with one objective. Late as it was they 
searched high and low for Mexicali Joe. They went first 
to his wretched cabin among the pines at the edge of the 
settlement; they got his wife out of bed and fired ques¬ 
tions at her, receiving only blank looks of wonder; 
clearly she had not seen Joe and had no inkling of his 
sudden importance. They went away and in turn 
looked in at every likely place which Big Pine offered. 
But they found no sign of Joe. In a town of less than 
fifty houses he had vanished like one shadow engulfed 
and blotted out by another. They began to fear that 
he had fled, frightened, into the mountains. 

A dozen men had seen Joe’s gold. Before midnight 
no less than twenty tongues had discussed the one 
matter of moment. Men cautioned other men against 
letting too many people know; but such was the electric 
mood swaying them that early the next morning the 
news began trickling forth through the country sur¬ 
rounding Big Pine. By late afternoon word had pene¬ 
trated far up into the mountains and, following the 
stage road, had gone fifty miles toward the distant 
railroad. And that same day it leaked out that Mexicali 
Joe, who had so strangely disappeared, had not fled at 
all but all the time had been in Big Pine. He had been 
arrested by Sheriff Taggart and thrown into the town 
jail, charged with disturbing the peace. 

Taggart himself had nothing to say. He kept Joe 
shut up alone and let no one see him. 


CHAPTER II 


A NORMAL census gave Big Pine a population of about 
one hundred and twenty inhabitants, and the most 
normal thing which any census does is to exaggerate. 
But within forty-eight hours after the tearing of Mexi¬ 
cali Joe’s coat pocket between nine and twelve hundred 
people, variously estimated, poured into the settlement. 
Wood-choppers and timber jacks and lone prospectors 
hurried down from the mountains; storekeepers and 
ranchmen came up from far below Rocky Bend and 
Red Oak; that strange medley of humanity which always 
rushes first in the wake of gold news filled Big Pine 
to overflowing, men and even women; all straining to 
one purpose back of which lay many motives. Spring 
was verging on summer; nights were cold, but the air was 
dry; they found rooms where they could, and when they 
could not they builded great camp-fires and found what 
comfort they might in the edges of the pine groves. 
Gallup doubled his prices and then doubled them again, 
and still his house was full. There were half a dozen 
empty houses, ancient disreputable shacks long in dis¬ 
use; these found usurping tenants the first day. There 
were some few who had had forethought and took the 
time to bring tents. Almost in an hour a quiet, sleepy 
little mountain town was metamorphosed into a noisy, 
clamorous and sleepless mining camp. 

Among the first to arrive was a young man named 
Deveril. Very tall and good-looking and gay and slender 
he was, making himself look taller by the boots he wore 
and the way he pinched his soft hat into a peak. Babe 
Deveril he was called by those who knew him, saving 

9 


10 


TIMBER-WOLF 


one only, who called him Baby Devil and jeered at 
him with a pair of mocking eyes. 

Deveril had been in Big Pine before, though not for 
some years. Also he had seen his share of mining 
camps through Arizona and New Mexico and Nevada, 
and knew something of congested conditions and the 
hardships which accompanied the short-sighted. Be¬ 
fore his arrival was ten minutes old, he had cast about 
him for a shelter. Already the Gallup House was full, 
but not yet had the disused, tumbled-down shacks been 
thought of. He found a dilapidated building which 
once, long ago, had been a log cabin; it stood in the 
pines set well back from the place of Mexicali Joe; it had 
a fireplace. Deveril preempted it coolly, neither know¬ 
ing nor caring who the owner might be; he brought his 
slim bed-roll here, followed it up with frying-pan, bacon, 
and coffee-pot and considered himself established. 
Further, being just now in funds and always yielding to 
the more fastidious impulses at moments when fortune 
was kind, he secured a serving-maid. Maria, the dusky 
daughter of Mexicali Joe, consented gladly to come in 
and cook and make the bed and keep things tidy. He 
gave her a couple of silver dollars and made her a bow 
to bind the bargain, tossing in for fair measure a flashing 
smile which left the half-breed girl thrilling and sighing. 
Thereafter, bending his mind to the main issue, he sought 
to find out for himself how much of fact underlay the 
glittering rumors which had been pouring forth from 
Big Pine like rays from the sun. 

This heterogeneous mass of humanity occupying Big 
Pine had broken up into numerous small groups, after 
the fashion of men who are so prone to break large 
units down into smaller ones. Cupidity, jealousy, and 
suspicion flaunted their banners on all hands; men 
watched one another like so many thieves. The old 


TIMBER-WOLF 


II 


inhabitants went about bristling, resenting the presence 
of these outsiders who were rushing in to steal the golden 
secret. Among themselves they were divided into two 
antagonistic factions; there was the Gallup crowd, in¬ 
cluding Gallup and Sheriff Taggart and the men who 
did their bidding; and there were those who had heard 
Barny McCuin’s tale and who were out to block the 
game of Gallup and Taggart, or know the reason why. 

Babe Deveril, sauntering here and there, identified 
himself with no group; it was his preference always to 
hunt singly. But he went everywhere, his mind and 
ears and eyes co-ordinating in the work he set them. 
He listened to rumors and sifted them and went on to 
newer and always contradictory rumors. It was said 
that Mexicali Joe had been killed, his body found in a 
ravine three miles from town; that Gallup had spirited 
him off last night into the mountains; that Joe had made 
his strike in the old and long-deserted mining camp of 
Timkin^s Bar; that his specimens had come from Lost 
Woman’s Gulch; that Joe had never stirred a mile from 
Big Pine in his latter prospecting, and that, therefore, 
at any moment any one of the thousand gold seekers 
might stumble upon his prospect hole. It was said that 
Joe’s pay-dirt would run twenty dollars to the ton, and 
while this was being advanced as though by one who 
knew all about it, another man was saying that it would 
run a thousand dollars. Deveril, when he had heard a 
score of empty though colorful tales, turned at last to 
the Gallup House; Gallup and Taggart knew all that 
was to be known, and, although they had the trick of the 
shut mouth and steady eye, there was always the chance 
of a sign to be read by the watchful. 

He came upon Gallup himself standing in his doorway, 
looking out thoughtfully upon the road jammed tight 
with restless men. 


12 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“Hello, Gallup,’’ he said. 

Gallup regarded him briefly; again his gaze flicked 
away. 

“Don’t remember me, eh?” queried Deveril lightly. 

“No,” said Gallup, curt in his preoccupation. “I 
don’t.” 

“Must have something disturbing on your mind,” 
suggested Deveril as genially as though Gallup’s atti¬ 
tude had been exactly opposite what it was. “Haven’t 
looked in on you for half a dozen years, but you ought to 
remember.” Gallup’s eyes came back slowly, a frown 
in them, and the other concluded: “Known as Deveril 
.. . Babe Deveril, formerly of Cherokee. . . .” 

Gallup showed a quick, unmistakable sign of interest 
and Deveril laughed. But Gallup’s frown darkened 
and there came a sudden compression to his lips. 

“I got you. Kid,” he said sharply. “You said it: 
There is a thing or two on my mind and I’ve got no 
time for gab. Just the same, take this from me: A 
certain Bruce Standing has been sent word the town 
can get along without him showing his face; and 
maybe, being his cousin, you’ll trail your luck along 
with him.” 

“So you and Bruce Standing are still playing the nice 
little parlor game of slap-the-wrist, are you ?” Deveril 
jeered at him. But, still highly good-humored, he went 
on: “He’s no cousin of mine, Gallup. You’ve got the 
family tree all mussed up. What fault is it of mine if 
a thousand years ago Bruce Standing and I had the 
same murdering old pirate for ancestor? At that. 
Standing descended from him in the straight line and I 
am somewhat less directly related.” 

Gallup snorted. 

“None of Standing’s breed is wanted in my place,” he 
said emphatically. 


TIMBER-WOLF 13 

Deveril, though his eyes twinkled, appeared to be 
musing. 

So you sent him word to stay away ? Didn’t you 
know that he’d come, red-hot and raging, as soon as he 
got your message ? Oh, well, you and my crazy kinsman 
fight it out to your liking; it would be a great thing for 
the community if you’d both do a clean job, cutting 
each other’s throats. ... By the way, where does 
Taggart fit in.? How does he work it to be hand in 
glove with both of you at the same time ?” 

“You heard what I said just now ?” 

“I did. Say, Gallup, where’s Mexicali Joe? I’ve 
got some business with him.” 

Gallup, brooding, appeared not to have heard. Then, 
making no answer, he turned and went back into his 
house and into the big main room, where a crowd of men 
had foregathered. Deveril, his hat far back, his dark 
eyes keen and bright, followed him, almost at his heels. 
Gallup saw him out of the tail of his eye but for once 
gulped down his first hot impulse; his hands were full as 
things were and there were large stakes to play for, with 
nothing to be gained just now by a rough-and-tumble fist 
fight with a man who was obviously highly capable of 
taking care of himself. So he pretended to let Deveril’s 
entrance go unnoted and thereafter ignored him. 

For the first time in many days there were no drinks 
being served in Gallup’s House. With so many strangers 
in town, one did not know how many federal agents 
might be snooping about. And, again, this was no time 
for the main issue to become befogged with side issues; 
Gallup did not want any unnecessary ruction on his 
hands. Nevertheless some of the men drank now and 
then, but from pocket flasks which they had brought in' 
with them; flasks which for the most part came originally 
' from Gallup’s stock but which had been sold on the 


14 


TIMBER-WOLF 


street by Gallup’s man Ricky. The room was thick 
with heavy tobacco smoke; most of the men remained 
strangely quiet, watching Gallup or Bamy McCuin, who 
glowered in a corner, or the sheriff who came and went 
among them. Deveril spent not more than ten min¬ 
utes here; once more he returned to the street and to 
his passing from knot to knot of men. 

“I’ll bet a hat Gallup was lying about that warning 
to my mad kinsman,” he told himself thoughtfully. 
“I don’t believe he’s man enough to get rough with 
Bruce Standing.” 

It was almost at the moment that Deveril came out 
of Gallup’s place that the first shock of genuine news 
burst along the crowded road; Mexicali Joe had been 
located. He was in the stone jail, not five hundred yards 
from the thickest of his seekers, and had been there since 
last night, locked up by Taggart! The crowd split 
asunder as cleanly as though some gigantic axe had 
cloven its way between the two fragments; one group 
at full tilt ran to the jail, to prove to their own senses 
that here at last was a word of truth; the other streamed 
down to the Gallup House, seeking Taggart and an ex¬ 
planation. With the latter went Babe Deveril, who 
meant to keep his eye on Taggart and Gallup. 

There were three steps leading up to Gallup’s side 
door through which at last came Taggart, when the 
crowd clamored for him. He stood on the top step, 
looking stolidly at the faces confronting him. He was 
a big man, massive of physique, hard-eyed, strong- 
willed; he had been sheriff for a dozen years and after 
long office as the chief representative of the law bore 
in his look the stamp of that unquestioned authority 
which is the unmistakable brand of the mountain 
sheriff. He had looked straight into the eyes of many 
men in many moods and his own glance never wavered. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


IS 

Never a great talker, he stood now a moment in silence, 
tugging slowly at his heavy black mustache. 

^‘Mexicali is my man right now he said at last, 
got him in jail.” 

That was all. There was no belligerence in his tone; 
his look remained untroubled. Babe Deveril, begin¬ 
ning to understand something of what had happened 
and casting his own swift horoscope of the likely future, 
wondered to what extent it was in the cards that Jim 
Taggart should stand in his way. There was big game 
in the wind, or men like Gallup and Taggart, who were 
always big-game men, would not be taking things upon 
their shoulders thus. And to-day Jim Taggart was at 
his best; he stood as solid and unmoved as a rock, with 
never a flick of the eyelid, as he made his quiet an¬ 
nouncement and awaited the breaking of any storm 
which his words might evoke. 

There was a short lull while men murmured among 
themselves, and yet, digesting Taggart’s statement, im¬ 
pressed by his manner, hesitated to speak the thought 
which was forming in dozens of brains simultaneously. 
Presently, however, a man at the far edge of the crowd 
shouted: 

‘‘What’s he arrested for, Taggart ? What did he do ? ” 

Before the man had gotten his ten words out, the 
sheriff’s keen eyes found him where his lesser form was 
half hidden by the bigger men in front of him. 

“I hear you, Bill Cary,” he said quietly. “And the 
only reason I’m answering a regular none-of-your- 
business question is that all of you other boys that have 
stampeded in here on a wild say-so will be worrying your 
heads off until you know what’s what. I pulled Joe 
on two counts: First for disturbing the peace.” 

An uproar of laughter boomed out at that and even 
Jim Taggart smiled. But he went on evenly: 


i6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


‘‘Of course that was a blind until I got the goods on 
the second count. And I only got that a few minutes 
ago. This ain’t any trial, exactly, and still I guess it 
will save trouble if you know all about it. So I’ll let 
Cliff Ship ton step up and testify.” 

Suddenly he stepped aside and a tall, hawk-faced 
man who had been holding his place at Gallup’s side, 
just behind Taggart’s massive bulk, stepped forward. 
Men craned their necks and crowded closer; nearly all 
of them knew Cliff Shipton. He was a Gallup man and 
always had been a Gallup man; for the last two years 
he had been in charge of a profitless “gold-mine” 
which Gallup pretended to operate at the head of the 
Lost Woman’s Gulch; a property which, it was generally 
conceded in and about Big Pine, was merely the pro¬ 
verbial hole in the ground intended for sale to a 
fool. 

“Last week, gents,” said Shipton in his easy style, 
“we hit it rich out at the Gallup Bonanza. Pocket or 
ledge, we’re not saying which right now. But we got 
the stuff. We been keeping it quiet until we got good 
and ready to spring something. I had the choice speci¬ 
mens in a box in my shack. That Mexican’s been prowl¬ 
ing around; I couldn’t be sure until I’d glimpsed the 
specimens, but I just looked ’em over. That’s the story; 
Mexicali, being half drunk and stupid generally, made 
his haul out of my specimen box.” 

As the first slow murmur, gathering volume, began, 
Jim Taggart threw up his hand and shouted: 

“Now, men, go slow 1 I’ve seen a pack of gents before 
now get all het-up because they was sore and disap¬ 
pointed. And I can read the eye-signs! But pull off 
and think things over before you make a lot of howling 
fools out of yourselves. If you want me any time . . . 
Well, I’ll be right on hand!” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


17 

He stepped back swiftly, in through the open door, 
and it closed after him. 

For a little while the men remained uncertain. Jim 
Taggart represented the law; further, he was no man at 
any time to trifle with. He had offered them an explana¬ 
tion and the worst of it was that it might be the truth. 
Discussions began on every hand; those who believed 
were in the minority and lost voice as the other voices, 
becoming heated, grew louder. Babe Deveril was turn¬ 
ing away when a man caught at his sleeve. 

‘‘You know those men, Taggart and Gallup and the 
rest. What do you make of it ? What had we ought 
to do?’’ 

Deveril shook the man off. 

“Go slow until you know what you’re doing,” he 
admonished curtly. “Then go like hell.” 

He skirted the crowd and went up to his cabin to be 
alone and do a bit of thinking on his own part. 


CHAPTER III 


There was a crowd of men, tight-jammed, about the 
little square stone jail as Deveril made his way toward his 
cabin. Every man of them was striving for a glance 
through the barred slit of a window behind which Mexi¬ 
cali Joe glared out at them. In the throng Deveril 
marked a man who wore his deputy-sheriff’s badge 
thrust prominently into notice and who carried a rifle 
across the hollow of his arm. Deveril shrugged and 
went on. 

“ In jail or out, the Mex is going to keep a shut mouth,” 
he meditated. “He’ll never spill a word now, unless 
Taggart gets a chance to give him a rough-and-ready 
third degree. And Taggart will get no such chance to¬ 
night.” 

Through the dim dusk gathering among the pines he 
came to the cabin. A light winked at him through the 
open door; Maria, Joe’s daughter, was getting his supper. 
Well, he was ready for it; blow hot, blow cold, a man 
must eat. 

“Hello, Senorita,” he greeted her from the threshold. 
“How does it feel to be the one and only daughter of the 
most distinguished gentleman in town ?” 

Maria did not understand him, but her white teeth 
flashed and her large southern eyes were warm and 
friendly. 

“They found your papa,” he told her. “He’s in 
jail.” 

^'‘Seguro^^ responded Maria, unmoved. “That is 
nothing for him.” 

Deveril laughed and went to wash at the bucket of 


TIMBER-WOLF 


19 


water which the girl had placed on a bench in the 
corner. Maria finished setting his table with the few 
articles at hand, putting a black pot of red beans in the 
place of honor before his plate. As he returned from 
washing and smoothing his hair down, he noted the plate 
itself; a plain, cracked affair of heavy crockery with a 
faded design in red roses. Plainly, Maria had raided 
her mother’s home for that. She was looking at him 
for his approval and received it. At the moment she 
had both hands occupied and he stooped forward and 
kissed her. It was lightly and carelessly done; a gay 
salute to the girl’s warm smouldering beauty. For 
beauty of its kind she did have, that of the young half- 
bred animal. 

She gasped; her face, whether through indignation or 
pleasure, went a dark burning red. Deveril laughed 
softly and sat down upon the box which she had drawn 
up for his chair. 

It was only then that he saw that he had a visitor. 
His eyebrows shot upward as he wondered. Another 
girl or young woman; in that light, as she stood just out¬ 
side his door, nothing very definite could be made of 
her. 

Could I have a word with you, Mr. Deveril 

He came to his feet almost at the first word, quick and 
lithe and graceful. Always was Babe Deveril at his best 
when it was a question of a lady. The voice accosting 
him was clear and cool and musically modulated. He 
tried to make out her face, but was baffled by the 
shadow cast by her wide hat. She was clad in a neat 
dark outing suit and wore serviceable walking boots; 
she was slim and trim and young and confident. Beyond 
that the dusk made a mystery of her. 

‘^A thousand!” he returned in answer. Won’t you 
come in ? ” 


20 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“ It is very pleasant outside. May I sit on your door¬ 
step 

“Lord love you/’ he assured her, “ you may do 
anything on earth that pleases you. . . . Maria, my 
dear, you may run home to your mama; I have affairs of 
state. And I’ll be delighted to see you again at break¬ 
fast time.” 

Maria put down her things and fled. Again Deveril 
laughed softly. 

“It was no tender scene that you interrupted,” he 
told his visitor. “I was merely seeking expression in a 
bit of rudimentary human language of my gratitude 
for the loan of a cracked plate! Look at it! ” He held 
it aloft. 

“A gratitude which obviously springs from the heart,” 
she returned as lightly as he had spoken. 

She sat down on the door-step. He came toward her, 
meaning to have a better look at her. 

“But you were just beginning your supper,” she ob¬ 
jected. “Please go on with it while it is hot. Other¬ 
wise I shall most certainly leave without talking with 
you as I had wished.” 

“But you ? There is plenty for both of us.” 

She shook her head emphatically. 

“No, thank you. It’s very kind, but I have eaten.” 

“Then I eat, though it’s putting a hungry man at an 
unfair advantage to watch him at such a disgusting 
pastime.” He poured himself a cup of coffee, all the 
while trying to make out her features. He knew already 
that she was pretty; one sensed a thing like that. But 
just how pretty, that even Babe Deveril could not decide 
as long as the light was no better and she hid in the 
shadows of her provoking hat. “And now, how may I 
be of service ?” 

Thus of the two she was the first to be given the op- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


21 


portunity of clear observation. There were two candles 
stuck in their own grease on the rough table, and between 
them his face looking out toward her was unshadowed. 
A face gay and insouciant, dark and clean-cut, the face 
of devil-may-care youth. It struck her that there was 
an evidence of the man’s character in the fact that, 
though she had caught him in the act of kissing his maid 
of all work, he was not in the least perturbed. She 
thought that it would be easy to like this man; she was 
not sure that she could ever trust him. 

I am Lynette Brooke,” she said in a moment. And 
I thought it possible that, if you cared to do so, you 
might answer a question for me.” 

^Tf I may be of assistance to you,” he told her, 
cordially, watching her narrowly, ^‘you have but to let 
me know.” 

Thank you.” He had inclined his head in acknowl¬ 
edgment of her introduction and now her head tipped 
slightly toward him. My question has to do, naturally, 
with the one matter of general interest in Big Pine 
to-day. You see, I have heard of you; I know that you 
know some of the men here . . . Sheriff Taggart and Mr. 
Gallup, for example. And ... I once had the plea¬ 
sure of meeting you, Mr. Deveril. Small excuse for 
troubling you, I know, but when one is in earnest . . .” 

‘H’ll tell you something!” said Deveril quickly. 

‘‘Yes?” 

“I’d give a whole lot for a good square look at you I 
I am no hand for names; and I haven’t been able to 
make out your face.” 

“A whole lot?” It was a fair guess that she was 
smiling. “Well, then, it’s a bargain. You give me an 
answer to a question!” 

‘ ‘ D one! Any question! ” 

With a sudden gesture her two hands went up to her 


22 


TIMBER-WOLF 


hat. At the same moment she jumped to her feet and 
came three steps into his cabin. As she brought the 
hat down to her side and turned toward him, the candle¬ 
light streamed across her face and Babe Deveril sat 
back on his box and with a sudden lighting up of his 
eyes collected his share of the obligation by letting his 
admiring glance rove across her disclosed features. 

. Pretty; yes, far and away more than pretty. He was 
startled by an unexpected, soft loveliness; an alluring, 
seductive charm of line and expression. Just now it 
was her mood to smile at him; and she was one of those 
rare girls whose smile is sheer tenderness. He marked the 
curl in her soft brown hair; the sparkle in her big gray 
eyes; the curve of the lips; in another moment the red 
mouth would be laughing at him. She held herself erect 
under his frank inspection; her chin was up; her eyes did 
not waver; she challenged him with her glance to look 
his fill and shape his judgment of her. 

“I think you are mistaken on one point,he told her 
quickly. “ I never saw you before, for I would not have 
forgotten.’’ 

^^The obvious remark nicely made,” she laughed at him. 

He frowned. 

‘^Through no fault of mine. You are welcome to 
know that I have a memory for pretty girls. And that 
you are absolutely the prettiest girl I ever saw.” 

“Thank you,” she mocked him. She put her hat on 
again and went back to the door-step. “Nevertheless, it 
is true that we have met before. Of course,” she 
amended hastily, “I am not going to claim any obliga¬ 
tion on either side because of that. But it suggested 
that I should come to you now instead of taking my 
chances with utter strangers.” 

“If you care to do me a.very great favor,” said Deveril, 
“you will tell me when you think you and I met.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


23 


‘‘Certainly. I have no desire to make a mystery of 
so common an occurrence. Last May you were in 
Carson 

“Yes.’’ 

“There was a dance. You went with Mildred Darrel. 
When you called for her she was out on the porch. 
Another girl was with her and you were introduced.” 

“After all, I was right!” he cried triumphantly. 
“You were in the shadows that the vines threw all over 
the porch. I don’t believe I even heard your name. 
Most positively I did not catch a glimpse of your 
face.” 

She dismissed the subject with indifference. 

“At least I have made my explanation. And now may 
I ask my question?” And, when he nodded: “Are they 
telling the truth when they say that Mexicali Joe stole 
his gold from Mr. Gallup’s mine ?” 

He had expected something like that; all along he had 
felt that this girl with the bright daring eyes and that 
eager confident carriage was in Big Pine because she, 
equally with himself, was concerned with the one oc¬ 
currence which for the moment made the community a 
place of interest to such as found no lure in the hum¬ 
drum. 

“Of course, you know that anything I could say in 
answer would be but one man’s opinion ?” 

“Yes. But knowing these men, your opinion would 
be of value to me.” 

“Well, then, I’d gamble my boots that they’re lying. 
And I can advance no reasons whatever for my belief. 
But there’s your question answered.” 

“As I thought that it would be. I was sure of it be¬ 
fore I came here. You make me doubly sure.” 

He, for the moment, was more interested in her than 
in Mexicali Joe and his gold. 


24 


TIMBER-WOLF 


You don’t belong up here in the mountains ? You’re 
a long way from your stamping-ground, aren’t you ?” 

‘‘Of course. I happened to be down in Rocky Bend 
when the news came and I caught the first stage up.” 

He tried to make her out. She did not look the type 
of woman who followed in the wake of such news, adven¬ 
turing. But then you could never tell what a woman 
was inside by the outer peach-and-cream softness of 
her, as Babe Deveril very well understood. 

She appeared to be plunged deep into revery. Per¬ 
haps there was something of weariness in the droop of 
her shoulders; if she had come on the early stage, she 
might have had a hard day of it altogether. . . . 

“Were you able to get a room at the Gallup House ?” 
he asked. 

“Yes. I was one of the first, you know. As to how 
long I can keep my room, I can’t tell. Mr. Gallup has 
doubled his prices and is likely to double them again.” 

“He’s that sort,” conceded Deveril. “He plays a big 
game and all the time has a shrewd eye for the little 
bets. By the way, do you feel entirely comfortable 
there ?” 

Her eyes drifted to a meeting with his. 

“What do you mean 

“There’s as tough a crowd there and spread all over 
town as I ever saw. Are you alone ?” 

“Yes. Quite.” 

‘^You don’t mean to say that you, a young girl and 
not overused to hardship, from the look of you, are up 
here to mix into such a scrimmage as may be pulled 
off ? To match your wits and your grit and your en¬ 
durance against the kind of men who go hell-raising 
into a new gold strike 

She tilted back her head against the door-jamb and 
looked up, straight into his eyes. Thus he saw her chin 


TIMBER-WOLF 


25 

brought forward prominently. It was delicately turned 
and joined, softly curving, a full feminine throat; and 
yet it was a chin which bespoke character and stubborn¬ 
ness. 

''When men go rushing after gold,’’ she said quietly, 
"more likely than not they go with empty pockets if not 
empty stomachs. There is always a chance, in a new 
mining-camp, for one who has a little money. A chance 
to stake a miner, going shares; and always, of course, 
the chance to stake one’s own claim.” 

"But you . . . What do you know of such 
things ?” 

"Not much, first-hand, perhaps. But it’s in the 
blood! . . . You look a very young man, Mr. Deveril, 
but you and I know that looks are not everything; 
and it is quite possible that you are old enough to have 
heard of Olymphe Labelle 

"Why,” he exclaimed, "I have seen her. I was only 
a boy; it was twenty years ago. That was down at 
Horseshoe; why, bless your soul, I fell head over heels in 
love with her! I can tell you how she dressed and how 
she looked. Big blue eyes; golden hair; a pink dress; a 
great big picture-hat, with ribbons. I was only eight 
or nine years old, but forget ? Never!” 

"My father married her down in Horseshoe! That 
was the first time he ever saw her and he didn’t let her 
get away! Dick Brooke; maybe you have heard of him, 
too ? If so you won’t ask why the daughter of Olymphe 
Labelle and Dick Brooke has it in her veins to mingle 
with the first of the crowd when there’s word of a new 
strike 1” 

There was scarcely a community in all Arizona or New 
Mexico, certainly none within the broad scope of the 
great southwestern plateau country, which had not in its 
time, a generation ago, paid tribute to the gaiety and 


26 


TIMBER-WOLF 


grace and beauty of Olymphe Labelle. She danced for 
them; she sang; she went triumphantly from one mining 
town or lumber-camp to another and men went mad over 
her. They packed the houses in which she appeared; 
they spent their money generously to see her, and night 
after night, captivated, they tossed to the stage under 
her pretty high-heeled feet both raw and minted gold. 
Olymphe was to this country what Lotta was to the 
camps of California in an earlier day. Then young 
Dick Brooke, a stalwart and hot-blooded young miner, 
saw her and that was the end of Olymphe’s dancing 
career. They were married within ten days. And from 
this union was sprung the superb young creature now 
sitting upon an adventurer’s door-step and looking 
straight up into his eyes. 

^^You see, it is only the thing to be expected, after 
all, that I should follow the gleam!” 

She, like himself, was young and eager and unafraid 
and adventuresome; and within her pulsing arteries was 
that pioneer blood which, trickling down through the 
generations is ever prone to set recklessness seething. 

There was a man coming up through the pines on 
horseback. In the gloom all detail was wanting. But 
obviously he meant to come straight on to the cabin. 
Deveril, seeing this intent, stepped by the girl and a 
couple of paces forward. The man, sitting in a strange, 
sideways fashion in the saddle, drew rein and peered at 
him. 

‘‘Name of Deveril ? Babe Deveril 

“Right, friend. What’s your trouble?” 

“Offering to shake hands, to begin with. I’m Winch; 
Billy Winch. You and me know each other.” 

He leaned outward from the saddle, putting out his 
hand. But Deveril ignored it, saying coolly: 


TIIVIBER-WOLF 


27 

‘^Why should I shake hands with you? You and I 
are not friends that I know of!” 

Billy Winch sighed, and used his hand to remove his 
hat and then rumple his bristly hair. Then he laughed 
softly. His horse, restless and fiery and well-fed, 
whirled, and for the first time Lynette Brooke made out 
the reason for that strange, lopsided attitude in the 
saddle; the man, a little, weazened fellow, had lost his 
right leg above the knee and managed a sure seat only 
by throwing his w^eight upon his left stirrup and thus 
maintaining his balance. 

^^Well,” said Winch good-naturedly, said to start 
off by shaking hands. Just to show as I was friendly.” 

repeated Deveril. ^^You mean Bruce Stand¬ 
ing ?” 

^^Sure. Of course. When I just say he I mean 

The girl sitting in the shadows smiled. Deveril, 
however, whose profile she could watch, appeared to 
have no good humor left to spend upon his caller. She 
marked how his voice hardened and how he bit off his 
words curtly. 

“I have no business with either Bruce Standing or 
with you.” 

^‘Well,” said Winch cheerfully, ‘^here’s the message: 
You’re to meet him in half an hour or so at the Gallup 
House.” 

For a moment Deveril was silent; then the girl heard 
his barely audible muttering and knew that under his 
breath he was roundly cursing the man who sent him a 
message like that. In another instant he flared out 
hotly, forgetful of her or ignoring her: 

You go tell your Bruce Standing that I said that he 
is a land hog and a thief and a damn’ fool, all rolled in 
one; and that I’ll meet him nowhere this side of hell.” 

Billy Winch chuckled as at the rarest of all jests. 


28 


TIMBER-WOLF 


got a picture of me going to him with a mouthful 
like that! On the low-down level, Deveril, he means to 
be friendly, I think. . . 

‘^Do your infernal thinking somewhere else,” snapped 
Deveril angrily. ^Xlear out or I’ll throw you out!” 

“I told him most likely you’d be sassy, so he won’t 
be disappointed, I guess. Well, I’m travelling, so you 
don’t have to mess your place all up throwing me off!” 
He was still chuckling good-naturedly as he swung his 
horse about with a light touch of the reins. Over his 
shoulder he called back: “He said it was important and 
he’d see you at Gallup’s inside the hour!” The voice 
was taunting; Billy Winch threw his weight into his one 
stirrup, and even the attitude, though made necessary 
through his physical handicap, was vaguely irritating, 
so carelessly nonchalant did it appear. His horse bolted 
like a shot as he gave the signal and in a moment bore 
him out of sight among the shadows under the pines. 
Babe Deveril, hands on hips, stood staring after him. 
Then he swung about and came back to the cabin, and 
the girl on his door-step, seeing his face clearly in the 
candle-light streaming forth, caught her breath sharply 
at the outward sign she glimpsed of the rage burning 
high and hot in his breast. 

“I’m of half a mind to meet him after all and break his 
confounded neck!” he cried out, a passionate tremor in 
his voice. 

All along he had intrigued her, with his handsome face 
and devil-may-care air and light gracefulness; she esti¬ 
mated coolly that if, as he had said of himself, he had 
a memory for pretty girls it was something more than 
likely that more than one pretty girl had carried in her 
heart the memory of him. Now, suddenly, his good 
looks were sinister; his gaiety was so utterly gone that 
it was next door to impossible to imagine that he could 


TIMBER-WOLF 


29 


ever be inconsequentially gay. The innate evil in the 
man stood up naked and ugly. And all because some 
man, a certain Bruce Standing, had sent a message 
commanding a meeting at the Gallup House. 

It was not exactly the thing to do to put her question, 
but interest, mounting above mere curiosity, piqued her, 
and, certain of an answer in his present mood, she offered 
innocently: 

^Ht seems to me I have heard the name Bruce Stand¬ 
ing. Just who is he 

Deveril glared at her and for a brief fragment of a 
second she was afraid of him; it was as though, by the 
mere mention of the name, she drew on herself something 
of the hatred he must have felt for this man Standing. 

‘‘You heard me read his title clear enough to his one- 
legged dog Winch,” he told her harshly. “He is a man 
who came into this country with nothing a dozen years 
ago and who now rolls in the fat of his ill-gotten gains. 
He’s a land hog who has robbed right and left and who 
has with him the devil’s luck. He owns thousands of 
acres of land out yonder.” A wide sweep of his arm 
indicated the endlessly rolling wilderness land, sombre 
ridges and ebony canons, rising into stony barren crests 
here, thick timbered yonder where they slumbered under 
the first stars. “He operates mines; he gambles in 
gold and copper and lumber . . . and life, curse him! 
And in human souls, his own with the rest. Fie runs 
half a dozen lumber-camps and has a thousand of the 
toughest men in the world working for him at one place 
and another. Men hate him for what he is, a cold¬ 
blooded highwayman. They have sent him a warning 
not to show his face in Big Pine, and being of the 
devil’s spawn he sends me word to meet him at Gallup’s! 
That’s his way and his nerve and his colossal conceit. 
May hell take him!” 


30 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“And/’ suggested the girl, watchful of him as she 
ventured to probe at his emotions, “on top of all of 
this . . . your cousin?” 

“iVi?/” He shouted the word at her angrily. “No 
cousin, thank God. Not so closely related as that. A 
kinsman of a sort, yes; but if you go back far enough to 
dig out the roots of things, we are all kinsmen since 
Adam. I claim no relationship with Bruce Standing.” 

“I should like to meet this wicked kinsman of yours,” 
she said, as though thoughtful and in earnest. 

“And,” she added, “warned against coming into Big 
Pine, he will still come openly?” 

“At least,” he grunted back at her, “there is one 
thing I have never denied him; he’s no coward. No 
Gallup was ever conceived who can tell him where to 
head in and get away with it. Of course he will come 
and in the wide open and on the run.” 

She rose to go. 

“I wish you all success in your dealings with your 
bold, bad kinsman. And I do thank you for your frank 
answer to my question. And now . . .good night.” 

“I’ll walk with you ... if you will let me ?” 

“Thank you, but . . .” 

They heard the clippety-clop of horses’ hoofs, run¬ 
ning. Not one horse this time, but three, bearing their 
riders like so many indistinguishable dark blurs through 
the night, sweeping on to the cabin. A man, one of 
the riders, was laughing, and Lynette Brooke knew that 
already here was Billy Winch returning. Babe Deveril, 
too, must have recognized the voice, for he jerked his 
head up and stiffened where he stood, oblivious of the 
fact that she had broken off with an objecting “but,” 
conscious only of a hated man’s impertinence. 

Those three were expert riders, men who lived in the 
saddle. They and their horses seemed moulded cen- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


31 


taurs for certainty and the grace of the habitual horse¬ 
man. They came on at such a break-neck speed and so 
close that the girl whipped back, thinking that they 
would run her and her companion down. Then, with 
that quick light pluck at the reins, they brought their 
horses down from a mad run to a trembling stand¬ 
still. 

“He said you was to meet him . . . about now! ” 

That was Billy Winch, lopsided and cock-sure in the 
saddle, the chosen messenger of his impudent, reckless 
chief. 

Winch flung out his arm. In the dark they could have 
made nothing of the gesture had it not been for the sud¬ 
den sibilant hiss of the rope, swung by an iron wrist, 
cutting through the air. The noose fell with absolute 
exactness; Winch was not ten steps away and the rope 
thrown so unerringly settled about Babe Deveril’s 
shoulders and with a quick jerk grew so tight that it cut 
into the flesh. On the instant the two men with Winch 
left their saddles and struck earth, both on the run 
forward. And, while Lynette Brooke thought with 
horror to see sudden death dealt, they threw themselves 
upon the man already fighting against the imprisonment 
of thirty feet of hemp. 

She had never seen men battle as now these three 
battled while Billy Winch sitting back in his saddle with 
his rope drawn tight, watched and laughed and cried 
out in broken phrases expressing his satisfaction with 
the situation. Babe Deveril, roped as he was, gave her 
such proof of prowess as to make her admiration for the 
physical perfection of him leap high. She, too, cried 
out brokenly; she wanted to see him win against these 
unfair odds. But the men clung on and Billy Winch 
sat laughing and tautening his rope; blows and curses 
and throaty growls, the whole thing lasted not half a 


TIMBER-WOLF 


32 

minute. Babe Deveril was down, mastered by three 
men. 

‘‘Well ? she heard him pant furiously. “What now ? 
Murder or only robbery again 

“Again ? Robbery ?” That was Winch’s untroubled 
voice, always gay. “When was the other time, pard- 
ner 

“He robbed me once of three thousand dollars. Now 
what ?” 

“Now,” said Winch coolly, loosening his rope an inch 
or two but still on guard, “it’s only what I said before: 
You are to meet him at the Gallup House, and I’m re¬ 
sponsible for your coming. So we’re taking you.” 

Deveril lay very still, two brawny men upon him. 
When he made no immediate reply Winch waited pa¬ 
tiently and knew, as the girl knew, that a man must be 
given a moment in such circumstances to collect his 
wits. Deveril’s panting gradually gave over to more 
quiet breathing; he lay flat on his back and saw the two 
heads bending over his own and, beyond them, the 
stars. He started once to speak, but clamped his lips 
tight. Still, in high tolerant patience, Billy Winch 
waited upon him while Lynette Brooke, trembling 
from head to foot with excitement, waited in burning 
impatience. 

“You got me, boys.” 

She could scarcely recognize Deveril’s voice; at first 
she thought that it was one of the other men speaking. 

“That’s sensible.” That was Billy Winch. Again 
he loosened his rope. 

“I guess,” Deveril went on quietly, “that the three of 
you, jumping me like that, regular Standing sneak- 
style, can lead me down to Gallup’s. Or, if you care to 
let me up. I’ll save you the trouble, and will go without 
your help.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


33 


“That's your promise?" queried Winch. 

“Yes . . . damn you." 

“That's fair. Let him go, boys." 

The two men holding him down, got to their feet and 
went back to their horses as if, their bit of work done, 
they had lost all interest, as perhaps they had. Deveril 
got to his feet and cast the rope off. Winch drew it 
in, coiled it, and tied it at his saddle strings. 

“Most any time now," he said casually. “He's on 
his way and due in a dozen minutes. All you got to do 
is listen for him!" 

Deveril stood, both arms stiffening at his sides, his 
head lifted high, looking straight at Winch. 

“Some fine day," he said with low-toned quiet anger, 
“ I'll get you or I’ll get him. And it will be a great day!" 

“It sure will. Kid," laughed Winch. ^^Adios, and all 
best wishes." 

The three riders, all seated by now, sped away, their 
horses kicking up the fine dust fragrant with fallen pine- 
needles. Deveril remained, rigid and angry, looking 
after them. 

“You don't know," he said heavily, as tne pounding 
hoof beats dwindled and the scurring blurs of figures 
faded, “you don't know and can't guess. . . ." 

And when he remained where he was, stiff, hands 
clinched at his sides and face lifted to the stars, she 
thought that for an instant it was given her to glimpse 
for the first time in her life something of the realities 
w^orking in a man's very soul. Almost she could see the 
hot tears in his angry eyes. 

She was very deeply moved. Clearly here was no con¬ 
cern of hers; these men, all of them including Deveril, 
were strangers to her and their loves and hates had 
nothing to do with Lynette Brooke. But none the less 
that current of men's lives ran so strong and swift tliat 


34 


TIMBER-WOLF 


she felt as though she were being actually and physically 
drawn into it. Nor, though her eyes did not once leave 
the rigid figure of Deveril, did her thoughts concern them¬ 
selves exclusively with him. She felt a sudden strange 
and burning interest in that other man whom she had 
never seen but of whose wild nature she had heard. She 
resented the work of Bruce Standing, done for him by his 
emissaries; she felt that she, no less than Babe Deveril, 
could hate a man like that. And yet already there had 
sprung up within her a strong desire to see him for her¬ 
self. 

^^How can it be,” she wondered, ‘‘that if he is the 
lawbreaker you call him, thief and worse, men allow 
him to go on his way?” 

He looked at her curiously. Then he laughed his 
short angry laugh. 

“He^s a man for you to look into, girl with the daring 
eyes! A cruel, merciless devil if half the tales are true 
and, to top off his madness, a man who has not hate 
but an abiding contempt for all your gentle sex. But 
you wonder why men let him roam free? In the first 
place, haven’t I told you that he rolls in wealth ? That’s 
one thing. Another is his cursed craft. You wonder 
why I say in one breath that he stole three thousand 
dollars from me and then merely growl that he remains 
outside jail?” 

“I don’t understand it, of course.” 

“Here you go, then: Half a dozen years ago I held 
that Bruce Standing and I were friends. He sent me 
word to come up here into his wilderness; I was to 
bring whatever money I could raise and there ‘Vas the 
chance to double it. I came. When I met him, twenty 
miles off over yonder in a cabin where he lived like a 
solitary old bear, we talked things out. With all of his 
big ventures he was on the edge of bankruptcy. He 


TIMBER-WOLF 


35 


was grabbing money in both hands irom any source 
and every source. He wanted my three thousand to 
throw in vdth the rest, the damned selfish hog that he 
was and is. I laughed at him and you could have 
heard him growl a mile. We slept that night in his 
cabin. In the middle of the night in the pitch black 
dark, I felt a man on top of me in my bunk, his hands 
at my throat. I got a tap over the head with something; 
when I woke up my money belt was gone and it was 
morning and there was Bruce Standing, singing and 
grinning and getting breakfast and asking me if I had had 
bad dreams.” 

‘^But . . .” 

^‘The law? When he wouldnT either admit or deny? 
When he just laughed and said, ‘Where in this country, 
my country, will you get a jury to convict me?^ And 
where, by the same token, was any money left in my 
pockets to do legal battle with a man intrenched as he 
is in his old mountains?” 

“And he goes on prospering?” 

“I tell you he was hanging on the rim of nowhere, 
broke. And he used my three thousand and God knows 
what other stolen funds, and now again he is the one 
power across a hundred miles up here!” 

There was one other thing she meant to ask. Billy 
Winch had said just now that Standing was on his way; 
that all they had to do was listen for him. She supposed 
that he had meant the clatter of a running horse’s hoofs; 
and yet something in Winch’s tone implied something 
else. No doubt Deveril understood; she was parting 
her lips to ask when, across the fields of the silent night, 
Bruce Standing himself answered her. A sudden thrill 
shot through her blood. 

As she was to learn later, there were many wonderful 
things about Bruce Standing. Among them were his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


36 

reckless impudence and his glorious voice. Now, be¬ 
fore ever she saw the man, she heard him singing, some¬ 
where far out, under the stars, alone with his wilderness, 
sending far ahead of him into Big Pine the word of his 
coming. A coming which was in defiance of the order 
which had gone forth and which, with his superb as¬ 
surance, he was ignoring. It was a voice as sweet and 
clear and true, for the high notes and the low notes 
alike, as a silver trumpet. She stopped breathing to 
listen. She felt her heart leap and quicken; a tingling 
quivered along her nerves. Never had she heard sing¬ 
ing like that, wild, free, a voice to haunt and linger 
echoing in the memory. 

And then, all of a sudden, she was set shivering. For 
the voice had done with the song and, at the end, with 
a great unexpected upgathering of sound was poured 
forth into a long-drawn-out call that was like nothing 
on earth save the howling of a wolf. The night call 
throbbed and billowed across the disturbed silences and 
all of a sudden was gone and the night was again hushed 
and still. 

“There you have one of the two good reasons why men 
call him Timber-Wolf,’^ said Deveril with a grunt. 

She scarcely heard. Somewhere, deep down within 
her, that golden outpouring, that rush of fierceness at 
the end, echoed and lived on. 


CHAPTER IV / 

■» 

Bruce Standing —Timber-Wolf, as he exulted in 
being called—was a man of few friends and many en¬ 
emies. In and about Big Pine men disliked him whole¬ 
heartedly; many hated him so that they would have 
been glad to know that he was dead. And this was 
chiefly because he jeered at them and overrode them; 
because at every opportunity, going out of his way to 
make opportunity more often than not, he thrust them 
aside and trod his unobstructed path through and over 
them, setting his heel upon many; because he spat upon 
their laws and made his own. And he, in his turn, held 
them in high contempt simply because always they 
stood aside for him. Those few who did not hate him 
were the handful of hard men whom, in the working out 
of his wide, overweening ambitions, he had drawn to him 
like so many feudal henchmen; they were, in their lesser 
degrees, of his stamp; they belonged in their hearts to 
an older day and a wider frontier; there were scores tak¬ 
ing his pay whose blood ran hot and lawless. 

So to-night he came riding down the winding trail 
from his mountains, singing. Thus he shot his spirit 
across the miles ahead of him, to invade Big Pine be¬ 
fore his coming, to taunt before he brought his hard 
eyes to mock at them. He had received his word and 
his warning, and made his retort in the one way possible 
to him. 

The road in front of the Gallup House, leading on to 
the pines and the aloof jail where Mexicali Joe glared 
out, was thronged. Half a dozen bonfires had been 
started, and in the ruddy light men stirred restlessly. 

37 


TIMBER-WOLF 


38 

Their talk was becoming purposeful; they gathered in 
knots about men who were showing impatient signs of 
initiative; they had murmured and were looking this 
way and that, over their shoulders, shifting their feet 
as they gave increasingly free expression to their deter¬ 
mination. They were working themselves up to the 
pitch of defiance of the law, as represented by Sheriff 
Jim Taggart; as yet no man cared to be first and still 
they looked frequently at the deputy sheriff with the 
rifle across his arm, and meant to set Mexicali Joe free. 
A man broke away from one of these groups and ran 
back to the Gallup House, to carry warning to Taggart. 

It was at this moment that Bruce Standing, Timber- 
Wolf, rode into town. He rode alone, on a powerful 
red-bay gelding, silent now, a great-bulked man sitting 
straight in the saddle. One saw nothing of his face under 
the wide black hat. 

He had no word of greeting for any man of them; after 
his characteristic coldly insolent way, he appeared to 
ignore them utterly. On the instant he, rather than 
Mexicali Joe, became the central object of interest. 
Most knew who he was and what he stood for, and 
wherein his visit among them was to be regarded as 
worthy of interest; those who did not know, marked 
the hush which greeted him, and in lowered voices de¬ 
manded the explanation which, in voices equally low, 
was briefly given. They looked for him to draw rein at 
Gallup’s and swing down and go in. But, knowing 
that you could never be sure of him, they watched 
to see. 

He disappointed them. That, in itself, was like him. 
No doubt he got his bit of glee out of knowing that, 
where they had looked to him for one thing, he had 
given them another. He rode on by Gallup’s without 
turning his head. Where a tree grew at the road-cross- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


39 


ing he dismounted, tying his horse. They saw that his 
rifle was in its scabbard, slung to the saddle; he left it 
where it was, and went forward on foot. Bigger than 
ever he loomed among them, appearing to walk leisurely, 
yet taking the long, measured strides which carried him 
along swiftly. They let him go on his way, their eyes 
following him with growing interest, some of the more 
curious of the crowd stringing along in his wake. And 
all this time no man had given him the time of day, 
and he had not opened his lips. 

Meanwhile they saw him turn his head this way and 
that, as though he sought something. Before he had 
gone fifty paces he found what he wanted. A man was 
piling wood on his fire; the axe which he had used a 
moment ago lay on the ground, glinting in the firelight. 
Bruce Standing stooped and caught it up and went on 
—straight toward the jail. A sudden shout from many 
voices burst out; men came running to see, now that 
they understood what he meant to do. And those 
about the jail, when they saw, drew back to right and 
left hurriedly, leaving only the deputy with the rifle 
across his arm to block the way. 

Now, the axe could mean only one thing in the world, 
and the deputy saw it, and saw who it was that carried 
it and called out a sharp, throaty warning. Standing 
came on, his stride quickened. He was not a dozen 
steps away, carrying his axe lightly in his right hand. 
The deputy jerked his rifle up, the butt to his shoulder, 
shouting: 

“Stop, or . . 

The man fired, but he was not quick enough. At that 
distance, had his finger touched the hair-trigger the tenth 
of a second sooner, he could not have failed to kill. But 
he was not the man, even though armed, to dictate to 
Timber-Wolf. For Standing made instant answer to 


40 


TIMBER-WOLF 


that command, ^^Stop!’’ and hurled his only weapon, a 
heavy wood-cutter’s axe, straight into the deputy’s face. 
The bullet went wild; the man who had fired it, through 
the rarest chance left alive, went down in a heap, uncon¬ 
scious before he struck ground. For, though the axe 
blade had very narrowly missed his face, the hard hick¬ 
ory handle had taken him full across the eyebrows and 
came near being the death of him. His rifle clattered 
against the rock wall of the jail. 

Bruce Standing, who had paused but the briefest 
moment, came on and stepped over the fallen man, and 
caught up his axe again. He stooped long enough to 
make out that the deputy’s head was not split open; 
then he swung up his axe, high above his head, and 
brought it crashing down against the thick oak padlocked 
door. The sound of the stroke echoed and the echoes 
were lost in the striking of the second blow. And, when 
for the third time the axe rose and fell, flashing in the 
light of the fires, the door fell. 

“Out you come, Joe.” 

Standing’s deep, full voice rumbled in a sort of rich, 
placid content. And out like a rabbit, darted Mexicali 
Joe, looking pinched and starved and frightened. 

“It is you, Senor!” he gasped. 

“The crowd will be after you,” said Standing. “And 
I’m not going to worry about what happens to you after 
this.” 

He was turning away when Joe caught his sleeve, and 
stood on his tiptoes and began a rapid, excited whisper¬ 
ing. Standing hesitated, then laughed and shook the 
man off. 

“You are a good little sport, Mexico,” he chuckled. 
“Now, on your way.” 

Joe, with never another look behind him, turned and 
ran, disappearing about the corner of the jail, sending 


TIMBER-WOLF 


41 


back an account of himself in the sound of his racing 
footfalls among the pines. 

Once again came a great shouting from the crowd in 
the road; they had seen, and now that they had their 
hearts’ desire in having Mexicali Joe free, they saw 
themselves losing all hope of coming at his secret because 
they were losing him. Their brief interest in Bruce 
Standing was dead for the present; Joe ran like a scared 
cat, and the}^, like so many yelping dogs, set after him. 
And Timber-Wolf, watching, standing where he was 
with his big hands on his hips, roared with laughter. 

Babe Deveril and the girl, Lynette Brooke, had seen 
much of all this. They were at the time on their way 
to the Gallup House, she to her room and he to his 
meeting with his lawless kinsman. Thus it happened 
that Deveril’s first sight of Timber-Wolf in half a dozen 
years, and Lynette’s first sight of him in all her life, 
was at a moment when he was engaged in an episode 
of the type which made him stand apart as the man 
he was. 

‘‘Taggart ought to kill him for that,” grunted Dev¬ 
eril. “And he probably will before the night is over.” 

The girl shivered as she had done just now when she 
saw a rifle raised and an axe flung. And yet within her, 
being woman, there was the exultation which would not 
down, and the thought: “He is magnificent ... A 
brute, maybe, but surely magnificent!” And she knew 
that she would never be content until she had seen his 
face and looked into his eyes. Already, being woman, 
she was concerned with his eyes; whether they would be 
large or small, set wide apart or close together. She 
wanted him to be the lion, not the wild boar. 

The remainder of the night’s happenings was to come, 
because of the simple arrangement of rooms at the 


42 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Gallup House, within the' experience of both Deveril 
and Lynette. They saw Bruce Standing go down the 
road and followed him. He did not once look back. 
When he came to his horse, he stopped only long enough 
to take down his rifle. Plainly now he meant to go 
direct to the Gallup House. All the while men were 
streaming by him, hurrying to join in the chase after 
the escaping Mexicali Joe. So, by the time he came to 
Gallup’s door, there were not over a score of men re¬ 
maining in the house. 

The Gallup House was a long, squat building of two 
low stories, its three main rooms on the ground floor 
facing the road. These were the dining-room; a room 
given over to Gallup’s office, and sufficient space for a 
dozen chairs and a big sheet-iron stove—a sort of living- 
room for Gallup’s guests, when he had any; and, finally, 
a room which had in older times been the barroom, and 
which, despite changing conditions, remained in practice 
a barroom. At this hour both dining-room and sitting- 
room were deserted, and the score or so of men, Gallup 
and Taggart among them, were in the bar. Plere were 
round tables, for it was a big room, for games of cards 
or dice. 

Deveril and the girl parted at the centre door through 
which she entered direct into the general living-room. 
They saw Bruce Standing go to the last of the three doors 
and step in unhesitantly, still carrying his rifle lightly. 
Deveril followed him, and saw the looks on the faces of 
Taggart and Gallup and some of their following. 

^T stepped in to buy the drinks for the crowd,”^ 
Timber-Wolf said quietly, all the while his eyes 
flashing back and forth. “Gents, the treats are on 
me.” 

Jim Taggart, his hands on his hips, was eying him 
like a hawk, and in Taggart’s face was a dull, hot flush.. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


43 


Gallup, however, standing close at Taggart’s side, was 
the first to speak. He cried out angrily: 

“No man drinks with you in my house! Not as long 
as I live. And . . 

Bruce Standing drew a wallet from his pocket. 

“About twenty men here,” he said, in the same slow, 
steady voice. “As it’s a night of celebration, we’ll 
make it a dollar a drink. That’s twenty bucks, easy 
money. Young Gallup,” he wound up with a sneer in 
his voice. For all men knew Gallup’s cupidity, which 
clutched at small as well as large amounts. 

But Gallup, shaken with rage, only shouted back at 
him: 

“To hell with your twenty dollars! And with you, 
Bruce Standing I” 

“So? Well, twenty dollars isn’t much, after all, is it? 
Gents, we drink to-night and damn the cost! Two 
bones for every glass of whiskey; that’s forty of the 
iron men, Gallup. Call Ricky with the bottles.” 

A couple of men laughed at that. Gallup, however, 
seeing himself baited, roared out: 

“I tell you, no I And out you go. You are not 
wanted here.” 

“Low bid loses, high bid wins,” said Standing. Now 
he opened his wallet and disclosed a tight pad of bills. 
“Three dollars for each and every glass of imitation 
hootch! God, what a pirate you are, Gallup! Now, 
trot it out.” 

“Sixty dollars, clean-cut velvet. Gal,” said a man at 
his elbow, willing to drink with the devil so the drink 
came paid for. 

“And at last Young Gallup hesitates, his soul tempted 
by a row of dirty pennies,” gibed Standing. “Look, 
men, and you’ll see that pale-yellow soul of his snared 
clean out of his stingy hide. Look, Gallup! And if 


44 


TIMBER-WOLF 


you can say no this time you have established a new 
record for yourself 

Slowly, while they watched him, he counted off ten 
ten-dollar bank-notes, and, with a careless gesture, 
tossed them to a table. 

“That’s for one round of your rotten bootleg liquor, 
he said contemptuously. “Now, step out, Gallup, and 
show them the sort of money-grabbing porker you are. 
You know you haven’t got the guts to save your own 
besmirched pride at the price of a hundred dollars.” 

Gallup would have sold out for far less, but Timber- 
Wolf was not the man to haggle over what he termed 
dirty pennies. He shrugged his heavy shoulders and 
caught up the money, counting it carefully, stuffing it 
into his pocket and growling: 

“You’re not wanted here. Standing; but any time 
you’re fool enough to pay a hundred dollars for the privi¬ 
lege, I’ll take the rules down for a round of drinks! 
Hey, Ricky!” 

Standing only grunted at that, though his eyes flashed. 

“I come when I please and where I please, and you 
know it, Young Gallup 1 And if you think you are the 
man to throw rde out, hop to it and don’t let a little 
hundred dollars hold you back! Better than that; if 
you’ll tie into me right now and chuck me out of doors, 
getting all your hangdogs that will take a chance with 
you to help you, you’ve got my w^ord that I’ll add a 
second hundred as your bonus! Or a thousand, by 
heaven! And right now you’ll toe the scratch or back 
down and shut your mouth.” 

Gallup had never before in his life been faced down 
like that. And with so many men looking on! Yet in 
his heart, though no man had ever called liim a coward, 
he was afraid of Timber-Wolf; mortally afraid. There 
was the look of death itself in the eyes flashing into his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


45 

own. He sought to laugh the thing off, saying, with 
what semblance of fine scorn he could master: 

Your word 

‘‘I am no liar,’’ said Standing wrathfully. “And no 
man in all Arizona and New Mexico ever called me liar. 
Do you. Young Gallup?” 

“Bruce!” called Sheriff Taggart sharply, for the first 
time speaking a word. “What’s the sense of trying to 
start a row? Drop all this foolery and let me have a 
word with you.” 

“That’s fair enough,” agreed Standing. “I’ve no de¬ 
sire to break Gallup’s neck so long as he leaves me alone. 
But make it snappy, as I have another engagement.” 

“I want to talk with you privately, Bruce.” Tag¬ 
gart obviously was angry, and yet it vv^as equally clear 
that when it came to dealing with the Timber-Wolf, 
Jim Taggart meant to hold himself well in hand. 

“I won’t stand for corner-whisperings,” Standing told 
him sternly. “If it happens you’ve got anything for 
my set of ears, they’re listening. But it’s right now or 
never.” 

Taggart’s black and ominous scowl deepened, and he 
shuffled his feet back and forth, and in the end stamped 
them in his anger. But still he held the curb line upon 
himself. 

“You always was a strong-headed man, Bruce, that 
would have things his way. So be it. And I guess, 
being a man myself that stands on his own two legs, I 
can say it all in one mouthful: You and me has always 
been friends. Are we that yet?” 

Now for the first time Lynette Brooke, looking in 
from the adjoining room through a door just ajar, saw 
Timber-Wolf clearly, his face under his big hat un¬ 
hidden as he turned a little in order to look straight at 


46 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Taggart. He did not see her, and she looked her fill 
at him; he gave her a start of surprise, and after that 
start came a surge of admiration. He was a young, 
blond giant of a man, eyes very blue and laughing and 
innocent! And wide-spaced! A man no older than 
Babe Deveril, one who bore himself like some old buc¬ 
caneer or Norse Viking, before men who would have 
given much for the courage and the power to fly at his 
bared white throat and drag the life out of him; a man 
who overflowed with his superabundant vital energy, 
and who stamped his own character, through sheer force 
of unbroken will, upon others about him; a man who 
believed in himself and who was at once implacable and 
gay. Heartless he looked, and yet full of the dancing 
joy of life. She felt herself on the instant both strongly 
drawn to him and frightened; the mad vision presented 
itself to her of herself in his mighty arms. And the odd 
tremor which shook her body, as she whipped back with 
flaming face, was compounded of thrill and shiver. He 
confused her; at once she was amazed that he could be 
like this and convinced that the owner of that glorious 
voice which she had heard pulsing out across the fields 
of night could be no jot different. . . . While she drew 
back to a dim corner of the room, she managed not to 
lose sight of him. 

His clear blue eyes kept on laughing; his was that 
silent laughter which arises from the soul, and which 
mocked and insulted and was like the cold mirth of 
Satan. And yet, in some vague way which she was all 
at loss to plumb, and which troubled her strangely, 
Lynette Brooke knew that this corsair of a man was 
laughing because there was cold anger in his heart and 
because, for some mysterious reason of his own, he was 
set on holding his anger hidden. It troubled her so 
that, within herself, she cried out passionately against 


TIMBER-WOLF 


47 


knowing through leaping instinct anything of what might* 
be going on within the dark caverns of the Timber- 
Wolf’s mind and heart. She wanted him and herself to 
be as far apart as north and south; she meant them to 
be. And all the while that compelling interest which he 
awoke within her tugged mightily and she yielded to 
it in that, keeping out of his sight, she lost nothing of 
the play of expressions upon his face. 

As yet she knew nothing of that one thing which 
Bruce Standing, forthright exponent of untrammelled 
manhood, held to be his greatest weakness; the one and 
only thing of which he was bitterly ashamed. A trifle, 
it amounted to; and a trifle he would have accounted it 
in any other strong man. Yet within his hard breast it 
awoke the intensest feeling of shame. And it was a 
thing which invariably sprang forth upon him and 
humiliated him whenever once he let his passions fly. 
A laughable thing, and yet one that put tears into his 
bright blue eyes. But, on guard against'it, he strove 
to curb his anger. 

Of all this and the thing itself she knew nothing. But 
she felt and she knew that the Timber-Wolf, laughing 
into Jim Taggart’s gloomy face, was fighting down his 
own anger, as a man may fight wild beasts. She awaited, 
scarcely breathing, the answer he would make to that 
question from Taggart: ‘^Are we still friends?” 

^*No!” shouted Standing, and laughed at him. ‘‘No, 
by God!” 

That Vv^as man talk! Straight, simple words—words 
that left little enough to be said. But Taggart, though 
his face grew hotter and his eyes seemed burning in their 
sockets, demanded further: 

“And why not, Bruce StandingYou and me have 
been pardners. You know and I know and a thousand 
men know what sort of a bond and an understanding has 


48 


TIMBER-WOLF 


always, for more than a dozen years, been between us. 
And now, if that is busted and wiped out, I ask you, as 
man to man: ^Why?^” 

“And as man to man,” cried Timber-Wolf, his eyes 
brightening, “I’ll answer you, Jim Taggart. When I 
knew you for a man who played his game he-man style 
and stood up and fought hard and took his chances, I 
was for you ! And I went out and shaped things up for 
you and made you sheriff. And, when men got to know 
you and wanted no more of you as master of law here 
in the mountains, I lifted you over their heads and 
made you sheriff again and again. And now that you 
are done for and are on your last legs, I would have done 
the same thing once more. But when you got panicky, 
thinking that this was your last term of office, and 
began to feather your dirty nest by running with the 
breed of this Young Gallup and his crowd, and when I 
found the sort of contemptible, hide-in-the-brush jobs 
you were pulling off, I got a bellyful of you and your 
new kind of ways. And you double-crossed me, think¬ 
ing I wouldn’t know! And on top of everything else, 
running neck and neck with Gallup, you threw Mexicali 
Joe into jail . . . knowing that Joe, puny blackbird as 
he is, had been a friend of mine. For that I’ve done 
two things, Jim Taggart: I’ve smashed your damned 
jail door off its hinges and I’ve thrown you over. And 
there, until I’m sick of talk about it, you’ve got your 
answer I” 

Taggart, too, and with his own ulterior reasons, kept 
his head cool. He said ponderously: 

“You broke the law, Bruce, when you let Joe go. For 
that I could run you in. But all Joe done was steal a 
pocketful of nuggets, and we got them back. And 
there’s bigger things than that, anyway. You and me 
has been friends and so I’ll go slow. But we got to have 


TIMBER-WOLF 


49 


another talk. YouVe got me down wrong, old-timer.” 

Never had Lynette Brooke seen such utter contempt 
as that which now filled Bruce Standing’s eyes. But 
he made no answer. At this moment the man Ricky 
came in with a gallon earthen jug and began to pour 
out the glasses set upon a table. Here was the Timber- 
Wolf’s hundred-dollar treat. Standing himself waved 
it aside and: 

drink no poison in this house,” ne said briefly. 
And as he spoke he saw for the first time Babe Deveril 
standing just inside the door, not two steps behind 
him. 

‘‘By the Lord, Babe, I’m glad to see you! Shake!” 
he shouted, thrusting out his big hand. 

But now it was Deveril’s turn to be cool and contemp¬ 
tuous. 

“You and I, Bruce Standing,” he said in that clear, 
insolent voice of his, “have gone a long way beyond the 
point of shaking hands.” 

Standing frowned as he muttered: 

“Don’t be a young ass. Babe.” 

But Deveril only shook his head, retorting: 

“I have come, according to promise, for a word with 
you. Suppose we make it snappy.” 

“The same little Baby Devil!” Standing jeered at 
him, making Deveril stiffen with that look of his eyes. 
“I’ll give you a new dance tune before I’m through with 
you. Come ahead!”—and with a suddenness which 
took Lynette Brooke by surprise he struck back the door 
leading to the room where she was and led the way in, 
Deveril at his heels. 

But, though there were three or four coal-oil lamps 
burning in the room which he had just quitted, there was 
but one here where she was. And because its chimney 
was smoky and the flame burned crookedly and she was in 


50 


TIMBER-WOLF 


a dim corner, he could make nothing of the look of her. 
Had she remained perfectly still he would scarcely have 
noted her presence. But now she was suddenly im¬ 
patient to be gone, and went hurrying to a door which 
led into a hallway, the hallway in turn leading to her 
room at the back of the house. 

woman,’’ growled Timber-Wolf disgustedly, get¬ 
ting only a glimpse of a hastily departing figure. 
begins to look as though a man couldn’t pick him a spot 
in the wilderness that the female didn’t crowd in.” 

Lynette heard, and knew with a flash of resentment 
that he did not care whether she had heard or not, and 
that with the last word he would be turning to Deveril 
and forgetting that he had seen her. She went slowly 
down the hall, three or four paces only. There she 
paused and lingered; it was no such pale incentive as 
curiosity which held her now, but a peculiar fascination. 
Two men like those two, by far the strongest-willed and 
most dynamic men she had ever known, with the busi¬ 
ness which lay between them, made her ignore and give 
no thought to the convention of shut ears against the 
talk of others. So she stood here in the dim hallway, 
poised for instant flight if need be to her own door, a 
couple of yards farther on. 

^‘Now,” said Deveril impatiently, ^‘what is it?” 

Timber-Wolf’s mood softened and the old bright 
laughter welled up in his dancing blue eyes. 

‘‘Ipass it to you. Kid,” he chuckled. ‘‘You’ve grown 
a man since last we met. We’ll not forget, either one 
of us . . . will we? . . . that night in my cabin?” 

“I’ll not forget,” returned Deveril coolly. “And 
some day I’ll square the count.” 

You’ll square the count?” The keen eyes twinkled 
like bits of deep-blue glass on a frosty morning. “I was 
under the impression that always you have held that I 


TIMBER-WOLF 


51 


was the man to square things. Accusing me, as you 
did, of so wicked a deed!” 

‘‘It was a treacherous thing at best,” muttered Dev- 
eril, his own eyes bleak with that bitter hatred which 
never slept. “I didn’t know then that you were, among 
other things, a damned thief.” 

Timber-Wolf’s sudden laughter boomed out joyously, 
and he smote his thigh so that the sound was sharp 
and loud, like a gunshot. 

“But you knew that always and always and once 
again always I take what I want 1 I asked you for the 
money, and I made you a fair proposition: I would guar¬ 
antee that you doubled your dinky three thousand, and 
I’d see you had interest on top of it. And you hadn’t 
the nerve to chip in . . .” 

“Wasn’t the fool, you mean!” 

“And so ... I went and took it! And I took from 
other quarters the same way. What I wanted I took. 
And when they all said I was busted in two, like a rot¬ 
ten stick, I fooled ’em, and laughed at the whole crowd. 
And now I’m whole again—and I’ve got what I want. 
That’s me. Baby Devil! A man who goes his way and 
blazes his trail wide. A man you can’t stop!” 

“A cursed, insufferable, conceited ass, rather than 
wolf,” snapped Deveril. 

And still, in the rarest of high good humor, Timber- 
Wolf laughed, and his rich, deep voice went rumbling 
through the house. 

“You’re sore. Baby Devil. And you’re envious.” 

“Not of you, Bruce Standing! You . . .” 

“Let’s chop out the Sunday-school stuff. Kid!” cried 
Standing impatiently. “I don’t need your lecturings. 
Maybe I’m not what your puling moralists call a good 
man, and maybe I’m not ‘clean-hearted and pure’ and 
all that drivel. But, by God, I’m a man who’s got his 


52 


TIMBER-WOLF 


own code and who sticks to it, blow high, blow low! 
A code that, if more men followed it, would give us a 
world with more men in it and fewer mollycoddle pups 

“It would appear,” sneered Deveril, “that you remain 
well contented with yourself! ” 

“Like the rest of humanity—he, she, and it!” said 
Timber-Wolf equably. “And so much for friendly chat¬ 
ter. Now a word whispered in your pretty ear, since 
the Lord knoweth how many busybodies are straining 
their own ears to listen-in on us.” 

Lynette, in the hallway, stiffened and felt her face 
grow hot. But, with a strange new-born stubbornness, 
she remained where she was. 

Timber-Wolf came a step closer to Deveril, and, 
lowering his voice so that Lynette lost the words, he 
muttered: 

“I am under obligations to you, my dear kinsman, 
and since there is a tough crowd in town, any man of 
whom would whack you over the head for a handful of 
silver, I am keeping this between us.” He took his wal¬ 
let from his pocket the second time, and drew from it 
several bank-notes. These he proffered to Deveril, his 
eyes still bright with his cold mirth. 

“Count it and stick it in your jeans,” he said softly. 
“There's your three thousand. With it is another three 
thousand, the double of the bet which I promised you. 
And with that is another two thousand, which is a gain 
of ten per cent for you for six years, all rough figuring. 
In all eight thousand in coin of the realm . . . and I’m 
much obliged,” he ended mockingly, “for your gener¬ 
ous loan 1” 

Babe Deveril, taken off his feet by the unexpectedness 
of this, stared at the bank-notes in the great hard palm, 
and from them to the grinning face. And slowly, from 
a conflicting tumult of emotions, in which, strangely 


TIMBER-WOLF 


53 

enough, anger surged highest, Deveril^s face went vio¬ 
lently red. 

‘'Damn you and your eternal posings!^’ Lynette 
caught those words, clear and high. But she missed the 
eloquence of the shrug into which Timber-Wolf’s shoul¬ 
ders lifted. 

“It’s up to you. Kid,” said Standing, and still he kept 
his voice low and quiet. The money lay in his out¬ 
stretched palm. “The minute I make my offer I con¬ 
sider my obligation fulfilled. If you are too proud to 
take it . . . well, then, the devil take you for a fool, and 
I’ll use the money elsewhere.” 

Deveril put out his hand, selecting from the several 
bills. 

“My three thousand, I take,” he said, “because it is 
mine. And the two thousand with it, judging that fair 
interest, considering the risks my money took. As for 
the rest—” he whipped back, and his voice, because 
of the emotions near choking him, was little more than 
a harsh whisper—“you can keep it and go to hell with 
it! I want none of your cursed charity!” 

Timber-Wolf’s thick eyebrows lifted, and a new look 
dawned in his eyes. 

“By thunder, Baby Devil, you’ve the makings of a 
man in you!” he exclaimed. “You and I could be 
friends 1” 

“Don’t fool yourself. We won’t be!” 

“ I didn’t say we would! ” And Bruce Standing glared 
at him angrily. “I only said we could. There’s a dif¬ 
ference there. Kid. I could eat tripe, but I’m damned 
if I ever will!” 

As the two men eyed each other, it was impossible to 
conceive of any earthly happening bringing them within 
the warm enclosure of man’s friendship. 

But there was money in sight, and money in the hands 


54 


TIMBER-WOLF 


of Timber-Wolf was habitually offered to fate as free 
money. And always, in the heart of Babe Deveril, 
when there was money in his pocket and money in sight, 
there was the impulse to hazard, to win or lose, and 
know the wild moment of a gambler’s pleasure. And 
so he said swiftly: 

“Just the same, I have a claim on that three thousand 
of yours!” 

“Yes?” And again the heavy eyebrows were lifted 
as Timber-Wolf’s interest was snared. 

“If it’s mine, it comes to me. If it’s yours, you keep 
it and take three thousand from me to boot. I’ll flip a 
coin with you I ” 

“Baby Devil!” laughed Standing softly. “Oh, Baby 
Devil, if your mamma could only see you now!” 

“Are you on?” demanded Deveril, in a suppressed 
voice. 

“On? With bells. Baby Devil! Heads or tails, and 
let her flicker 1 ” 

Lynette Brooke could catch only enough of all this 
to set her wondering. The two men were agreeing upon 
something, and all the while jeering at each other, and, 
though they checked their words and subdued their 
voices, anger was directing whatever they did or meant 
to do. 

Both men were eager and tense. For both made of 
life a game of hazard. With Babe Deveril three thousand 
dollars, to be won or lost in the flicker of an eyelid, 
was a large sum of money; to Bruce Standing, a man 
of millions, it was no great thing. Yet neither of them 
was more tense and eager than the other. The game 
was the thing. 

Automatically, perhaps subconsciously intending to 
have a free hand, since his rifle was still held in his left, 
Bruce Standing stuffed his spurned bank-notes into his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


55 


pocket. But it was Deveril who, having conceived the 
idea, was first to produce a coin; a silver dollar, and 
mate to those other silver dollars which he had presented 
to the girl, Maria. 

“Heads or tails. Standing?’’ he demanded, holding 
the coin ready to toss ceilingward. . 

“Throw it,” said Timber-Wolf, with his character¬ 
istic grin, “and I name it while it’s in the air. For I 
don’t know what sleight-of-hand you may have acquired 
these later years, and I don’t trust you, my sweet kins¬ 
man ! And shoot fast, as some one’s coming.” 

For both had heard the rattle of hoofs in the road 
outside, as some horseman came racing up to the door. 

“Name it, then,” cried Deveril, and shot the coin, 
spinning, upward. 

“Heads!” Timber-Wolf named it. “Always heads. 
My motto there. Kid!” 

The silver dollar, with such zest had it been pitched 
upward, struck the ceiling and dropped to the floor, roll¬ 
ing. It rolled half across the room, both men springing 
after it, stooping to watch and know how fate decided 
matters between them. And in the end there was no 
decision at all. For the coin rolled half-way into a 
crack between the boards and stood thus, on edge,, 
neither heads nor tails. 

“Flip her again,” growled Bruce Standing, deep in his 
throat. “And step lively!” 

Already the horse’s hoofs, as its rider plucked at the 
reins, were sliding outside. Deveril caught up the coin 
and tossed it again. And this time, true to his word, 
and not trusting the other, Bruce Standing called before 
the silver dollar struck the floor; 

“Tails!” 

And as the silver dollar struck and rolled and stopped, 
and at last lay flat, and the two stooped over it so close 


TIMBER-WOLF 


56 

that almost the black hair of one and the reddish hair 
of the other brushed, they saw that it was heads. 
And that Timber-Wolf, repudiating his motto, ‘^Always 
heads!” had lost three thousand dollars. And at,the 
instant their intruder burst in upon them from the road. 

Here, after his own strange fashion, came Billy Winch, 
Timber-Wolf’s one-legged retainer. An able-bodied man 
and agile had been Billy Winch all of his hard life 
until, after a horse had fallen on him, the doctor had 
cut his leg off above the knee. You’ll go on crutches 
the rest of your life,” they told him that day. And 
Billy Winch, weak and pale and sick and haggard-eyed, 
muttered at them: ^‘You’re a pack of damn liars! I’ll 
cut my throat before I’ll be a crutch-man.” And he 
had kept his oath. Seldom did he stir save on the back 
of his horse. And when needs must that he go horseless 
some few steps, he went “like a man, one-leg style, hop¬ 
ping ! ” Now, hopping on his one foot so that, with his 
pinched, weazened face and small bright eyes, he resem¬ 
bled some uncouth bird, he bounced into the room. 

“I got word for you, Bruce Standing!” he cried ex¬ 
citedly. 

“Clear out, you fool ...” 

“I won’t clear out! This is the real thing. Listen: 
A man, and it was a man paid by Young Gallup, has 
just went down the road with a double-barrel shotgun, 
and the dirty skunk has shot your horse, good old Sun¬ 
light . . . dead!” By now Billy Winch was whimper¬ 
ing; tears, whether of rage or grief, filled his bright eyes 
and streamed down his face. And all the while, to 
maintain his balance, he was hopping unsteadily about, 
his outflung hand groping for the wall. 

And now at last Timber-Wolf’s anger, a devastat¬ 
ing, all-engulfing rage which mastered him utterly, was 
unleashed. And with its release came inevitably that 


TIMBER-WOLF 


57 


one condition of which he was so terribly ashamed. He 
cried out aloud, in a great, roaring voice . . . and in 
the fierce grip of his wrath his utterance was so affected 
that his speech came enunciated in the most incongru¬ 
ous of fashions. For it was Timber-Wolf’s burning mor¬ 
tification that he, the strongest man of these mountains, 
when in the clutch of his mightiest passions . . . lisped 
like an affected school-girl! 

*'Thunlight dead!” he stormed. ''You thay that to 
me? Yeth? Then, by God, juth ath thure as I live, 
I’ll . . .” 

tie cut himself short; his face, instantly red with rage, 
grew redder with shame. He snapped his great jaws 
shut, and across the room Deveril heard the grinding of 
his teeth. He swerved about, charging toward the door, 
which gave entrance to the room where Gallup was. 

But a far more critical moment than Timber-Wolf 
knew was ticking in the clock of his life.* In the hall 
stood the girl, Lynette. She had heard all of these 
words of Bniy Winch, and she had heard Bruce Stand¬ 
ing’s bellowed rejoinder. And she, already taut-nerved 
and keyed up, what with fatigue and a strenuous night, 
was so struck by the absurdity of a strong man lisping 
his passionate utterance, that she broke out into uncon¬ 
trollable laughter. And when Lynette Brooke’s laugh¬ 
ter caught her unawares, it rang out as clearly as the 
chiming of silver bells. Now, with nerves quivering, 
she was almost hysterical. . . . 

Timber-Wolf came to as dead a halt as though it had 
been a bullet instead of the mockery of a girl’s laughter 
which cut into his heart. For only mockery he made of 
it, he who upon this one point, as upon no other, was 
so sensitive. And to have a human female laugh at 
him! 

His rage threatened to choke him. But now, even 


TIMBER-WOLF 


58 

as he had forgotten his lost bet with Babe Deveril, so 
did he forget a dead horse and Young Gallup. The en¬ 
tire violence of his anger was deflected, turned upon a 
woman who had eavesdropped upon his ignominy and 
then assailed him with the mockery of her mirth. He 
who held all womankind in such high scorn, to be now a 
woman’s laughing-stock! He, Bruce Standing, Timber- 
Wolf ! He snatched at the hall door, and under his 
attack one of the ancient hinges broke, and the door, 
flung back, leaned crazily against the wall. And all the 
while, though he kept his teeth so hard set that his jaws 
bulged with the strain, he was muttering curses in his 
throat. He burst into the dim hallway, his brain on 
fire. 

She heard him coming. More than that, and before, 
it seemed to her that her instinct told her that he would 
come, bearing down upon her like a hurricane, in such 
violence as would stamp her into the earth. She had 
not meant to laugh at him; she did not want to laugh. 
And yet now all that she could do was clap her hands 
over her mouth and run before him as a blown leaf races 
before the storm. She sped down the hall, plunged into 
her room, slammed the door after her. 

. . . And in the hallway she heard the pounding 
of his heavy boots. Already he was at her door. 
Before she could shoot the bolt, he had gripped the 
knob. When he flung his weight against the panel, it 
flew back, and under the impact she was thrown back¬ 
ward, and would have fallen had it not been that she 
brought up against her bed. Here she half fell, but was 
erect before he had stormed across the threshold. 

“You . . .” 

Why had she run irom him? She was not afraid of 
him and she was not afraid of anything on earth. Or, 
at least, making a sort of religion out of it, that was the 


TIAfBER-WOLF 


59 

thing which she had always told herself. Just at hand, 
on the little table by the open window, was her revolver. 
And she could shoot and shoot true to the mark. She 
had told Babe Deveril that she could take care of her¬ 
self. She stood, rigid and defiant, and in her heart 
unafraid. 

On a bracketed shelf over her bed was a kerosene 
lamp which she had left burning when she had gone out. 
She could see the working of his lips. And he saw her. 

Now those who knew Timber-Wolf best knew this 
about him—that he had no use for womankind; that he 
held all of the female of the human race to be weaklings 
and worse, leeches upon the strength of man, mere out¬ 
wardly glossed tricks of a scheming nature; things con¬ 
temptible. And at this moment, surely, Timber-Wolf 
was in no mood to revise for the better his sweeping 
and deep-based opinion. But now, despite all trumped- 
up reasonings, no matter how sincere, his first clear 
view of this girl gave him pause. 

She was superb. Physically, if not otherwise. For 
the first thing, her hair snared him. Strong men are 
always caught by films; a big brute of a man who may 
break his triumphant way through iron bands grows 
powerless under a frail wisp of a frail woman’s hair. In 
the hall she had held her hat in her hands; her hair, 
loosely upgathered and insecurely and hastily confined, 
had tumbled all about her face as she bolted into her 
room. He saw that first of all. And then he saw her 
eyes. At the moment, already in her room with the 
door slammed shut behind him and his back against it, 
he looked, glowering, into her eyes. And he found 
them at once soft and still amazingly unafraid; those 
daring eyes of Lynette Brooke, daughter of a dancing- 
girl and of the dare-all miner, Brooke. Unafraid, though 


6o 


TIMBER-WOLF 


he who might have choked the life out of her between 
finger and thumb, turned his furious face upon her. 

He paid her tribute with a flash of his shining blue 
eyes. That was for the physical beauty of her; that 
said, Outwardly, girl, you are superb!” Yet it re¬ 
mained that, his one weakness shaming him, she had 
laughed at him. For the first time in his life a girl had 
laughed at him. . . . 

She saw the sudden changing fires in his eyes and 
stepped closer to the table on which lay that small, 
high-powered implement which puts the weak on a level 
with the strong. . . . 

“By God, girl . . .” 

There came a sudden sharp rapping at the door 
against which his broad back leaned. There was Babe 
Deveril, who had lunged after him. Timber-Wolf, 
growling savagely, flung himself about, for the second 
ignoring the girl and facing the door. Deveril, just 
without, heard the bolt shot home. And then he heard 
the second, the sinister sound. A revolver shot, mufiled 
by the four walls of a room. And he heard Timber- 
Wolf, whose back had been turned to Lynette Brooke 
and the gun upon the table, curse deep down in his 
throat, and heard almost simultaneously the scraping 
of the heavy boots and the crashing fall of the big 
body. Deveril shook fiercely at the door. Then he 
turned and ran back down the hall, meaning to go 
through the room he had just quitted and on through so 
as to come to Lynette’s room by the rear. 

But in the sitting-room Billy Winch, teetering on his 
one foot, grasped him by the arm, demanding to know 
what had happened. Deveril savagely shook him off, 
and Winch, raising the echoes with a shrilling voice, 
toppled over and fell. But little time had been wasted, 
and yet, before Deveril could free himself and run on, 


TIMBER-WOLF 


6i 


Lynette Brooke ran in upon him. Her eyes were wild 
and staring; in her hand was her revolver, so lately 
fired that the last wisp of smoke had not cleared from 
the barrel. 

‘‘Babe Deveril,” she gasped. ‘‘They are after me!’^ 

It was Sheriff Taggart who was after her. He was 
almost at her heels, shouting: 

“Stop! In the name of the law! You are under 
arrest for killing Bruce Standing . . 

Babe Deveril carried no weapon upon him. And he 
saw Taggart’s pistols dragging at his belt, the heavy 
forty-fives which, as sheriff, he was entitled to carry 
openly. Taggart’s hands were almost upon her. 

Deveril did the one thing. He caught at the gun in 
Lynette’s hand and wrenched it free, and, having no 
time for accurate aim, did not fire, but hurled the re¬ 
volver itself, with all of his might, full into Taggart’s 
face.. And Taggart, as though a thunderbolt had struck 
him, went down, with a steel barrel driven against 
his skull, near the temple, and lay a crumpled, still 
heap. 

“The house is full of Taggart’s friends!” Deveril 
cried sharply, warning her and, at the same time, think¬ 
ing for himself. 

But already she was running again. She ran out into 
the road; but there the brisk-burning bonfires made 
night into day. She dodged back into the shadow cast 
by the corner of the house, and ran about to the rear. 
Deveril hesitated only an instant; men were already 
rushing in from the room where they had been drinking. 
He followed her through the door, and here again he 
paused. Men were already stooping over the sheriff; 
he heard one cry out the single word, “Dead!” His 
brain caught fire. The girl had killed Timber Wolf; 
he had killed Jim Taggart. He and she were fugitives. 



62 TIMBER-WOLF 

He followed her again into the shadows, running to the 
back of the house. 

And as he ran one thing angered him: He had won 
three thousand dollars from Bruce Standing, and that 
three thousand dollars was at this moment in Standing’s 
pocket. And being Babe Deveril, who dared at least 
as far as most men dare, he meant to have what fortune 
allowed him. 

And so, when he came to an open and lighted win¬ 
dow, and looked in and saw the sprawling body of 
Timber-Wolf, Babe Deveril unhesitatingly threw his leg 
over the sill and went in. In his judgment Standing 
was as good as dead, shot in the back. Well, that was no 
affair of his, and certainly he was not the man to grieve. 
Let Serve him right” be his epitaph. Deveril, in a 
feverish haste, began to feel in the fallen man’s pockets. 

He found the bank-notes and stuffed them into his 
own pocket. At the window, as he turned back to it, 
while he heard men hammering at the locked door, he 
saw Lynette Brooke’s white face. She had been watch¬ 
ing him. Yet even that, in the present need for haste, 
made no impression. He slipped through, hearing a dis¬ 
cordant shouting of many voices. 

‘‘We are in for it now,” he panted. “Run!” 

He caught her hand, and, holding it tight, the two 
raced into the darkness under the pines. 


CHAPTER V 


Billy Winch was the first to come to the bolted 
door. He hopped swiftly down the hall and beat at it 
with his fists. Snarling and snapping, growling and 
finally whimpering, for the world like a dog, he cried out 
through his fierce mutterings: 

‘H’m the only man here that can save him if he ain’t 
dead already. And if he is dead ...” 

He hurled himself bodily at the door; he jumped up 
at it and kicked it with his one heavy boot and, falling, 
rolled over and crawled to his foot and struck again. 

The Gallup House had become a vortex of violent ex¬ 
citement. It was shouted out that two men were dead, 
Bruce Standing shot by the new adventuress whom many 
had noted; Jim Taggart killed as he sought to put her 
under arrest. Voices clashed and so did thoughts and 
purposes. Men streamed out into the firelit road; they 
heard running feet marking the way the two fugitives 
had taken, and started headlong in pursuit, stumbling 
and falling in the dark, and for the first few moments 
making slight headway. Others, Gallup among them, 
were already with Taggart, lifting him up and bearing 
him off to a bed. Still others, hearkening to the strange 
word that a woman had killed Bruce Standing, were sud¬ 
denly charged with the morbid curiosity to look upon 
this man dead. They found their way to the lighted 
window through which Lynette Brooke had escaped, 
and through it made their way into the room, until the 
small space was thick with their jostling bodies. All the 
while Billy Winch was beating at the door, yelling curses 
and, at last, when he heard them within, commanding 
and imploring to be let in. A man, stepping over 

63 


64 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Timber-Wolf’s body, obeyed and Billy Winch hopped 
in. Immediately he was down at his chief’s side, squat¬ 
ting, after his own awkward fashion, upon a knee and 
balanced by a stub of a leg. 

‘^He ainH dead!” Billy Winch’s breath was expelled 
in a long, grateful sigh, which, before his lungs flattened, 
was choked by a nervous giggle. “I’m here, Timber,” 
he said softly. “You know me, old boy!” 

“You damn little fool,” was Bruce Standing’s grunted 
answer. Yet his voice was gentle and his eyes for one 
rare and fleeting instant as soft as a lover’s. 

Billy Winch, a man of resource, was now himself 
again, cool and past all silly sentiment. He turned 
from the fallen man to the crowding onlookers, and his 
eyes darkened with fury. He snatched up the rifle 
which Standing had let fall, and, still kneeling, whipped 
it up over his head, brandishing it like a war club. 

“Out of this, every one of you!” he shouted at them. 
“ Give him air and give me room to work in, else I bash 
vour brains out 1” 

Had he been less in earnest some man of them might 
have found occasion to mark the absurdity of a cripple, 
squatting on the floor, waving a gun over his head and 
ordering them about. But as tilings were, no man ap¬ 
peared to glimpse this angle of it. One by one, with 
his eyes and the eyes of Timber-Wolf glaring at them, 
they went hastily out through the window. 

“Ought to get a doctor in a hurry,” one of the retreat¬ 
ing men was suggesting. 

Billy Winch cursed him into silence. For Winch held 
himself as good a physician and surgeon as any, having 
served in the veterinary capacity for a score of years 
and having a natural aptitude for treating bad cuts and 
gun wounds. Further, he loved this Timber-Wolf; and 
beyond, with all his heart, Billy Winch distrusted and 


TIMBER-WOLF 


65. 

hated the breed of doctors. His stump of a leg he 
attributed to the profound ignorance drawn by the 
medical and surgical profession from their books of 
theories. 

“You ain’t even bad hurt, Timber,” he growled, as 
though disappointed and angered that he had been 
tricked into a show of affection and fright. His look 
accused Standing of having wilfully deceived him. 
“Must have been just the shock, what we call the im- 
pack, that knocked you over. . . . Oh, lie still, can’t 
you!” 

But Bruce Standing gave him no heed, and continued 
in his attempt to draw himself up. While Billy Winch 
sat on the floor and looked up at him, the bigger man 
got slowly to his feet and stood leaning against the door. 

“Anyway, get over on the bed and lay down and I’ll 
look you over. You’re bleeding like a stuck pig. And 
you’re as white as a clean rag.” 

Bruce Standing’s face was already haggard and drawn, 
his mouth hard with pain. Yet he ignored Winch’s 
command, and walked slowly, forcing his steps to be 
steady, to the one chair in the room. He sat down upon 
it heavily, straddling it as though it were a horse, fac¬ 
ing the chair-back, and thus leaving his own back clearly 
proffered for Winch’s inspection. Winch got up and 
hopped to him, railing at him the while for not lying 
down and obeying orders. 

“Help me get my coat off,” commanded Timber- 
Wolf curtly. “Then you can dig around and find out 
what we’re up against.” 

Men were still at the window, peering in. 

“Scatter!” commanded Winch, waving the rifle at 
them. “And tell our boys to come here. Dick Ross 
and Charley Peters. They ain’t far.” 

Reluctantly the onlookers withdrew, some two or 


66 


TIMBER-WOLF 


three of them to pause in the shadows when once out of 
eye-shot, and look back. But from now on Winch dis¬ 
regarded them. He helped the wounded man off with 
his coat, yanked his shirts out from his belted waist, tore 
cloth freely when it was in his way, and thus uncovered 
the wound. 

^^She did that for you? That kid of a girl?” 

‘‘Yes, damn her,” muttered Timber-Wolf angrily, 
as Billy Winch’s fingers, already scarlet, touched the 
wound. “Turned my back a second . . . she ought to 
have shot me dead . . . either a rotten shot or in an 
awful hurry . . .” 

“Or scared to death!” Winch’s contempt was enor¬ 
mous. “That’s the kind that does the most harm, the 
scared-stiffs that’s always shooting the wrong time and 
the wrong man.” 

By now he had the shirts torn from top to bottom, 
and stood back, looking appraisingly at the broad, 
naked back and the small hole which a bullet had drilled. 
Against the great area of flesh, as white as a girl’s and 
smooth and clean with vigorous health, the smear of 
blood, itself red with that same perfection of health, gave 
the wound an appearance of ten times its real gravity. 
But Winch was accustomed to blood, and knew that 
Bruce Standing could lose more of it than could most 
men and be little the worse for the loss. He diagnosed 
the case aloud, muttering thoughtfully: 

“Thirty-two caliber, to begin with; a thirty-two ain’t 
nothing. Timber. Now, if it had been a forty-five, at 
that close-up range. . . . Well, you see you was stand¬ 
ing half-way slanting; it took you under that big shoulder 
muscle and drilled in and hit a rib, one of the high-up 
ones, and kept on going, sort of skirting round, skating 
on a rib, and popped out under your arm. Lift it a 
bit? That’s it. A clean hole. I tell you, either you 


TIMBER-WOLF 


67 

sort of slipped and fell, or it was the impack that knocked 
you over. . . . The boys will be here any minute, and 
will scare up a bar of castile soap for me and something 
to make a regular poultice, what we calls a comprest, you 
know; I can make one out of most anything; remember 
Sam True’s thoroughbred stallion that got all cut to 
hell last fall, and I made him a comprest out of sawdust! 
You remind me,” added Winch thoughtfully, drawing 
off one of his hopping paces, to take in with an admir¬ 
ing and practised eye the now virtually nude torso, a 
white, smooth-running engine of power and endurance, 
‘^of a wild stallion mostly as much as a man, anyhow. 
A good smear of mustang liniment on that shoulder, a 
application, you know; and a dose of physic and a couple 
days’ rest and careful diet, and you’ll be as good as 
new . . .” 

^‘What happened in the other room?” demanded 
Standing, deaf to Winch’s mutterings. “After she went 
through the window?” 

“She came busting in where Deveril and I was, her 
eyes the size of two new dish pans. I put in new be¬ 
cause they was shining like it too; I thought she’d seen 
the devil. She has a gun in her hand and she yells out, 
‘Save me!’ or something like that. And after her, 
doubled-up running, comes Jim Taggart, yelling at her: 
‘I got you for killing Bruce Standing!’ And then that 
cool-headed, hot-hearted young Baby Devil of yours 
grabs the gun out of her hand and whangs Taggart over 
the head with it so that he drops dead in his tracks. 
And I hear a man say he is dead, too; but I don’t stop 
to see. Don’t seem natural, and yet a man’s close to 
mortal danger if he gets whanged with any hard object, 
such as steel gun-barrels, on the head, close up to the 
temple; we call it the parrytal bone, you know, and I’ve 
known men and even horses that was killed so quick ...” 


68 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“Then what?’^ snapped Timber-Wolf. 

“Then both him and her beats it like the mill-tails of 
hell! And that part’s natural enough, him figuring he’s 
killed the sheriff, and her figuring she’s plumb killed 
you. They stampeded into the brush, ducking out 
toward the timber-lands where it was darkest, a bunch 
of hollering fools after them.” 

“And Jim Taggart?” 

The “boys” whose presence Billy Winch had re¬ 
quested came hurrying in at the hall door, excitement 
and alarm shining in their eyes. One glance reassured 
them, and while Dick Ross gave expression to his relief 
in a windy sigh and sought hastily for materials to build 
him a cigarette to replace that which he had dropped 
as he raced here, Charley Peters stood and mopped at 
his forehead with an enormous dingy blue handkerchief 
and grinned. Billy Winch, who had the trick of pithy 
brevity when there was need of it, made his wants 
known sharply, and the two men, their spurs still drag¬ 
ging and clanking after them, hastened away for basin 
and soap and whatever else of Winch’s first-aid mate¬ 
rials might be had at hand. In the meantime. Winch 
was yanking a sheet off Lynette Brooke’s bed, and rip¬ 
ping it into tatters for his bandages and rags and what 
he termed “mops and applications.” 

“It ain’t necessary to probe for the bullet,” he ad¬ 
mitted, almost regretfully. “But I might poke around 
in there a mite, while the hole’s good and wide open, to 
make sure that a piece of your shirt or something didn’t 
get lodged inside ...” 

“I’ll break your damned neck for trying it,” threat¬ 
ened Standing. 

“Well,” sighed Winch, “all I’ll do then is just take a 
pack-needle and put in a stitch or two. Remember 
when Dick Ross’s horse ...” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


69 

“You’ll take some warm water and soap and wash 
me off,” said Standing emphatically. “Then you’ll 
make me one of your infernal compresses out of clean 
cloth; and after that you’ll leave me alone. . . . Tell 
me about my horse, old Sunlight. So Gallup had him 
killed for me?” 

“Somebody pretty near blowed his head off with 
buckshot,” Billy Winch told him, and again twinkling 
fires of anger flickered in the little man’s eyes. “If 
Gallup didn’t have the job done, who did ? I ask you! ” 

Timber-Wolf stared at the wall. Within him, too, rose 
scorching anger, that resurgent bitter flood which was 
not lessened now because in the first place it had leaped 
upon him unexpectedly, and had thus been the cause of 
his humiliation. But within him there was another 
emotion, one of deep grief; for he loved a good horse, 
no man more. And Sunlight was his pet and his trusted 
friend, and had been, for many a wilderness week, his 
only companion. 

“You didn’t leave him suffering any. Bill?” His 
voice sounded cold and impersonal and matter-of-fact. 
Yet Billy Winch understood and answered softly: 

“I stopped long enough to make sure. Timber. But 
I didn’t have to shoot him; he just rared his head up and 
looked at me straight in the eye, as man to man, so help 
me God, and fell back . . . dead. No; he didn’t suffer 
much.” 

Bruce Standing was silent a long time, his eyes brood¬ 
ing, his brows drawn after a fashion which Billy Winch 
could make nothing certain of; anger and bitterness or 
a sign of his own bodily pain. They heard spurred boots 
in the hall, returning. Then a quick look passed be¬ 
tween Timber-Wolf and Billy Winch, and Timber-Wolf 
said hastily, dropping his voice and speaking with a 
peculiar softness: 


70 


TIMBER-WOLF 


‘‘When you get a chance, you take the boys and see 
that old Sunlight is moved out of this skunk town; he^s 
too fine a little horse to take his last rest here. Out on 
a hilltop, somewhere; looking toward the east, Bill. 
And a good, deep hole and . . . leave the saddle and 
bridle on him. Bill.” 

“I get you,” returned Winch gravely. And, by way 
of thoughtful acknowledgment of the justice of this 
thing, for Billy Winch, too, loved a horse, he muttered: 
“ThaFs fair.” 

With the return of Ross and Peters, Winch gave them 
their orders, as a stern and dreaded head master might 
issue commands to a couple of his boys, securing unfail¬ 
ing and immediate obedience. For the one job of both 
Ross and Peters, and the one job which had been theirs 
for five or six years, was to do what they were told by 
Billy Winch and ask no questions, and look sharp that 
they did not seek to introduce any of their own and 
original ideas into the carrying out of his behests. For 
this they were paid by Timber-Wolf, who used them 
for many things, consigning matters of vital importance 
into their hands by way of Billy Winch’s brains and 
tongue. 

“ Stand ready to hand me things when I ask for them, 
Dick,” said Winch. He scrubbed his own hands with 
soap, and let Dick pitch the water from the basin out 
the window. Dick obeyed promptly, adding nothing of 
his own to the simple task^ beyond making sure that he 
pitched the v/hole basinful far out; far enough, in fact, 
to give a thorough wetting to one of the curious who 
had lingered outside, watching through the lighted win¬ 
dow. “You, Charley,” ran on Winch, “go doTO to 
where old Sunlight is, and stick there until me and Dick 
come out. His saddle and bridle ain’t to be took off, 
and you’ll have to keep your eye peeled some regular 


TIMBER-WOLF 


71 


Big Pine citizen don’t snake ’em, for their silver, under 
your eyes.” Charley understood enough to do as he 
was told, and hurried out. “Now, Dick, stand by with 
them rags and warm water.” 

Winch went promptly to work, and, in his rough-and- 
ready fasliion, did a good clean job of bandaging a sim¬ 
ple wound. A raw wound like that must of necessity be 
intensely painful; yet Timber-Wolf’s quiet and regular 
breathing never altered once, and not so much as the 
breadth of a hair did the muscular back flinch. They 
had just gotten the torn shirts lapped over into place 
and the coat thrown over Standing’s shoulders, and his 
hat picked up from the floor for him, when a man walk¬ 
ing heavily came down the hall and stopped at the door, 
knocking sharply. 

“Who is it?” demanded Winch. 

“It’s me, Taggart. Is Standing all right?” 

Bruce Standing himseK, holding himself very erect, his 
head well up and his eyes cold and hard, opened the 
door. 

“So the devil refused to take you, after all,” he 
grumbled. “They had it reported that Deveril had 
killed you. At that, it looks as though he’d come close 
to doing a good job of it.” 

For Jim Taggart’s face, too, was white, and there was 
a broad band about his head, stained hi one spot near 
the left teinple. 

“The same kind thought rides double,” rejoined Tag¬ 
gart, with a sudden flash of the eyes. “That wildcat of 
a girl came close to marking out your ticket to hell.” 

“Where is she now?” asked Standing eagerly. “Did 
they bring her back?” 

“Gone clean, for the present,” answered Taggart. 
“If that fool of a Babe Deveril hadn’t butted in, just 
piling up trouble for himself, and knocked me out while 



72 


TIMBER-WOLF 


I wasnT even looking at him, I’d of had her by the 
heels. And now the two of ’em, two of a kind, if you 
ask me, are off into the mountains together. And I’m 
starting after them in ten minutes, and will drag ’em 
back before to-morrow night, just as sure as you’re a 
foot high.” 

“What have you come to sling all this at me for?” 
snapped Standing. 

“I wanted to see if you was dead,” returned Taggart 
coolly. “Now I just pinch both of ’em for assault with 
a deadly weapon with intent to kill. If you’d of died, 
it would of been murder for her.” 

“At least, I’m glad you blew in, Jim Taggart. There 
are two things it might be just as well to get straight. 
First: When you and I, a dozen years ago, were side- 
kicks, prospecting together, bunking together, grub¬ 
staking each other, taking chances a lot of the time on 
a quick, hard finish to the little old game of life, we had it 
understood that if I died all of my belongings went to you; 
and if you cashed in first, anything you had went to me.” 

Taggart nodded and said swiftly: 

“My papers stand that way to this day! I never go 
back . . 

“The more fool you, then,” jeered Standing. “I’m 
done with you, and my papers are changed already . . .” 

“Already?” Taggart started visibly. “Since when?” 

“Since yesterday. Nothing I own, not so much as 
a wart on a log of mine, ever goes your way.” 

The bitterness in Taggart’s soul overspilled into his 
voice as he cried out savagely: 

“Sure, there you are! That’s the way it goes. Now 
that your luck’s been running high and you don’t need 
me, now that my luck’s been dragging bottom, why 
then you’re ready to pitch me over ...” 

“Liar!” Timber-Wolf cut him short with the word 


TIMBER-WOLF 


73 


which was like an explosion. But he did not pause to 
discuss a point of view, but continued immediately: 
^‘That’s the first thing. Here’s the second: You’ve de¬ 
cided to run neck and neck with Young Gallup. So you 
can take him a word from me. Tell him”—and Stand¬ 
ing’s voice, husky with his emotions, made even Jim 
Taggart wonder what was coming—“that I came into 
his skunk hole of a town to-night just because he had 
the nerve to tell me not to. Tell him that I know that 
was his work that my horse was killed just now. Tell it 
him that if I ever come into his skunk hole once more in 
my life, it will be to pull his damned town down about 
his ears.” 

Taggart chose to break into contemptuous laughter. 
But Bruce Standing, lost to all sense of his own pain, 
caught him angrily by the shoulder and shouted into 
his ears: 

“And this, for the last word ever to be spoken be¬ 
tween you and me, Jim Taggart. That rake-hell Jezebel 
that shot me, shot me and not you! Got that? I’m 
not asking you, sheriff or no sheriff, to chip in on my 
affairs; I’ll attend to the little hell-cat, and you keep 
your hands off. And, as for Babe Deveril, since the 
cursed fool wants to show his hand by cutting in with 
her and trying to snatch her out of my reach. I’ll attend 
to him at the same time. The likely thing is that they’ve 
headed into the wilderness, my wilderness, and I’m going 
after them. And you are to keep out of my way.” 

With a violent shove he thrust Taggart out of his 
way and strode by him, going swiftly down the hall, 
Dick Ross swinging along close behind him and keeping a 
watchful eye upon Taggart, little Billy Winch hopping 
along in the rear and spitting audacious venom at the 
sheriff with his baneful eyes. In this order the three 
came out under the shining stars. 


CHAPTER VI 


Bruce Standing, a man of that strong, dominant, and 
self-centred character which is prone to disregard the 
feelings of others, held both Lynette Brooke and Babe 
Deveril his prey. But Jim Taggart, whose professional 
business it appeared to be to bring in the girl, and whose 
sore and aching head would not for many a day lose 
record of the fact that it had been Babe Deveril who 
had forcibly put him out of the running, had his own 
human purposes to serve, and set his nose to the trail 
lilie a bloodhound. And yet, with these two bending 
every energy to run them to earth, the two fugitives 
plunging headlong into the friendly darkness were for 
the moment utterly lost to those who plunged into the 
same darkness and in the same headlong style after 
them. 

Hand in hand, chance-caught, and running swiftly, 
Lynette and Deveril were in time to escape the first of 
their pursuers, a crowd of men who got in one another’s 
way, and who were too lately from the lighted room of 
the house to see clearly outside. Behind Gallup’s House 
was the little creek which supplied the town with its 
water; it wound here across a tiny flat, an open space 
save for its big cottonwoods. The two, knowing that in 
the first heat of the chase opening at their heels they 
were running from death, sped like two winged shadows 
merged into one. After a hundred yards they hurled 
themselves into breast-high bushes, a thick tangle—a 
growtli which, in such a mad rush as theirs, was no less 
formidable than a rock wall. They cast quick glances 
backward; a score of men—appearing, in their widely 
spread formation and from their cries and the racket of 

74 



TIMBER-WOLF 


75 

scuffling boots, to be a hundred—shut off all retreat and 
made hopeless any thought to turn to right or left. 

“Down!’’ whispered Deveril. “Crawl for it! And 
quiet! ” 

On hands and Knees they crawled into the thicket. 
Already hands and faces were scratched, but they did 
not feel the scratches; already their clothes were torn in 
many places. In a wild scramble they went on, squeez¬ 
ing through narrow spaces, lying flat, wriggling, getting 
to hands and knees again. And all the while with nerves 
jumping at each breaking of a twig. It was only the 
shouting voices and the pounding boots behind them 
that drowned in their pursuers’ ears the sounds they 
made. 

“Still!” admonished Babe Deveril in a whisper. 

And very still they lay, side by side, panting, in the 
heart of the thicket. A voice called out, not twenty 
paces behind them: 

“They’rein there!” And another voice, louder than 
the first and more insistent, they thanked their stars, 
boomed: 

“No, no! They skirted the brush, off to the left, 
beating it for the open! After ’em, boys!” And still 
other voices shouted and, it would seem, every man of 
them had glimpsed his own tricking shadow and had 
his own wild opinion. 

Thus, for a brief enough moment, the pursuit was 
baffled. 

“Slow and quiet does it!” It was for the third time 
Babe Deveril’s whisper, his lips close to her hair. “I 
see an opening. Follow close.” 

Lynette, still lying face down, lifted herself a little 
way upon her two hands and looked after him. 

“String ’em up!” a voice was calling. It was like the 
voice of a devil down in hell, full of mob malice. She 


76 TIMBER-WOLF 

shivered. ‘^They’re murdering devils. String’em up!” 

^Xatch ’em first, you fool,” called another voice. 
Again pounding boots and ... far more sinister sound 
. . . snapping brush where a man was breaking his way 
straight into the thicket. 

Like some grotesque, curiously shaped snake. Babe 
Deveril was writhing along, ever deeper into the brush 
tangle, ahead of her. She began crawling after him. 
Voices everywhere. And now dogs barking. A hun¬ 
dred dogs, it seemed to her taut nerves. She knew dogs; 
she knew how they went into a frenzy of excited joy 
when it was a question of a quarry, any quarry; she knew 
the unfailing certainty of the dog’s scent. She began 
hurrying, struggling to get to her knees again. . . . 

‘‘Sh! Down!” 

She dropped down again and lay flat, scarce breath¬ 
ing. But once more she saw the vague blot of Deveril’s 
flat form wriggling on ahead of her, almost gone now. 
It was so dark 1 She threw herself forward; she threw 
her arm out and her hand brushed his boot. It was a 
wonderful thing, to feel that boot. She was not alone. 
She began again following him; dry, broken, and thorny 
twigs snared at her; they caught in her clothes and in the 
laces of her boots; they tore at her skin. Yet this time 
she was as silent a shadow as the shadow in front of her. 
On and on and on, on endlessly through an eternity of 
darkness shot through with dim star glimmerings, and 
pierced with horrible voices, she went. She came out 
into an opening; she stood up. She was alone! And 
those voices and the yelping of dogs and the scuffling of 
heavy, insensate, merciless boots. . . . 

A hard, sudden hand caught her by the wrist. She 
whipped back, a scream shaping her lips. But in time 
she clapped a hand over her mouth. She was not alone; 
this was Babe Deveril, standing upright . . . waiting 


TIMBER-WOLF 


77 

for her! She brought her hand down and clasped it, 
tight, over his hand. 

“Run for it again,’’ he whispered. “Off that way . . . 
to the right. If we can once get among those trees . . .” 

Side by side, their hearts leaping, they ran. Gradually, 
but steadily, the harsh noises grew fainter behind them. 
They gained the fringe of trees; they splashed through 
the creek; they skirted a second tangle of brush and 
rounded the crest of a hill. And steadily and swiftly 
now the sounds of pursuit lessened behind them. 

“And now,” muttered Deveril, for the first time for¬ 
saking his cautious whisper, “if we use what brains God 
gave us, we are free of that hell pack.” 

“If they caught up with us?” she questioned him 
sharply. 

“Most likely we’d both be swinging from a cotton¬ 
wood in ten minutes! There’s no sanity in that crowd; 
it’s all mob spirit. If it is true that both Bruce Standing 
and Jim Taggart are dead . . . Well, then, Lynette 
Brooke, this is no place for you and me to-night! Come 
onl . . 

“Babe Deveril,” she returned, and now it was her 
fingers tightening about his, “I’ll never forget that you 
stood by me to-night!” 

Babe Deveril, being himself and no other, a man reck¬ 
less and unafraid and eminently gay, and, so God 
made him, full of lilting appreciation of the fair daugh¬ 
ters of Eve, felt even at this moment her touch, like 
so much warm quicksilver trickling through him from 
head to foot. He gave her, in answer, a hearty pressure 
of the hand and his low, guarded laughter, saying 
lightly: 

“You interfere with the regular beating of a man’s 
heart, Lynette Brooke! But now you’ll never remem¬ 
ber to-night for any great measure of hours, unless we 


78 TIMBER-WOLF 

step along. Thevll hunt us all night. Come, beautiful 
lady!’’ 

Even then she marvelled at him. He, like herself, 
was tense and on the qui vive; yet she sensed his utter 
fearlessness. She knew that if they caught him and 
put a rope about his neck and led him under a cotton¬ 
wood branch, he would pay them back to the last with 
his light, ringing laughter. 

In this first wild rush they had hc.d no time to think 
over what had just happened; no time to cast ahead 
beyond each step deeper into the night. Where they 
were going, what they were going to do—these were 
issues to confront them later; now they were concerned 
with no consideration other than haste and silence and 
each other’s company. To-night’s section of destiny 
made of them, without any reasoning and merely through 
an instinctive attraction, trail fellows. True, both car¬ 
ried blurred pictures of what had occurred back there at 
the Gallup House so few minutes ago, but these were 
but pictures, and as yet gave rise to no logical specula¬ 
tion. As in a vision, she saw Timber-Wolf sagging and 
falling as he strove to slew about; Deveril saw Tag¬ 
gart rushing in at her heels, and then going down in a 
heap as a revolver was flung in his face. Only dully at 
present were they concerned with the query whether 
these two men were really dead. When one runs for his 
life through the woods in a dark night, he has enough 
to do to avoid limbs and tree trunks and keep on going. 

Big Pine occupied the heart of a little upland flat. 
In ten minutes Lynette and Deveril had traversed the 
entire stretch of partially level land, and felt the ground 
begin to pitch sharply under foot. Here was a sudden 
steep slope leading down into a rugged ravine; their 
sensation was that of plunging over the brink of some 
direful precipice, feeling at every instant that they were 


TIMBER-WOLF 


79 


about to go tumbling into an abyss. They were forced 
to go more slowly, sliding on their heels, ploughing 
through patches of soil, stumbling across flinty areas. 

‘‘Down we go, as straight as we can,” said Deveril. 
“And up on the other side as straight as we can. Then 
well be in a bit of forest land where the devil himself 
couldn’t And us on a night like this. . . . How are you 
standing the rough-stuff?” 

It was the first time that he had given any indication 
of realizing that her girl’s body might not be equal to 
the work which they were taking upon them. Swiftly 
she made her answer, saying lightly, despite her labored 
breathing: 

“Fine. This is nothing.” 

“If I hadn’t forgotten my hat . . . among other 
things,” he chuckled, “I’d take it off to you right now, 
Lynette Brooke!” 

They paused and stood a moment in the gloom about 
the base of a big boulder, listening. Now and then a 
man shouted; dogs still barked. But the sounds were 
appreciably fainter, now that they had started down the 
steeply pitching slope into the ravine. 

“We can get away from them to-night,” she said. 
“But to-morrow, when it is light?” 

“We’ll see. For one thing, a chase like this always 
loses some of its fine enthusiasm after the first spurt. 
For another, even if they did pick us up to-morrow, they 
would have had time to cool off a bit; a mob can’t stay 
hot overnight. But give us a full night’s head-start, 
and I’ve a notion we’ve seen the last of them. Ready ? ” 

“Always ready!” 

Again they hurried on, straight down into the great 
cleft through the mountains, swerving into brief de¬ 
tours only for upheaved piles of boulders or for an occa¬ 
sional brushy tangle. In twenty minutes they were 


8o 


TIMBER-WOLF 


down in the bed of the ravine, and splashing through a 
little trickle of water; Lynette stooped and drank, while 
Deveril stood listening; again, climbing now, they went 
on. The farther side of the canon was as steep as the 
one they had come down, and it was tedious labor in 
the dark to make their way; at times they zigzagged one 
way and another to lessen the sheerness of their path. 
And frequently now they stopped and drank deep 
draughts of the clear mountain air. 

Silence shut down about them, rufSed only by the 
soft wind stirring across the mountain ridges. It was 
not that they were so soon out of ear-shot of Big 
Pine; rather, this sudden lull meant that their pursuers, 
done with the first moments of blind excitement, were 
now gathering their wits and thinking coolly . . . and 
planning. They would be taking to horseback soon; 
scouting this way and that, organizing and throwing out 
their lines like a great net. By now some one man, per¬ 
haps Young Gallup, had taken charge and was direct¬ 
ing them. The two fugitives, senses sharpened, under¬ 
stood, and again hastened on. They had not won to 
any degree of security, and felt with quickened nerves 
the full menace of this new, sinister silence. 

Onward and upward they labored, until at last they 
gained a less steeply sloping timber belt, which stretched 
close under the peak of the ridge. They walked more 
swiftly now; breathing was easier; there were more and 
wider open spaces among the larger, more generously 
spaced tree trunks. 

^‘We’ll strike into the Buck Valley road in a minute 
now,’’said Deveril. “Then we’ll have easy going. . . .” 

“And will leave tracks that they’ll see in the morning! ” 

“Of course. Any fool ought to have thought of that,” 
he muttered, ashamed that it had been she instead of 
himself who had foreseen the danger. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


8i 


So they hearkened to the voice of caution and paral¬ 
leled the road, keeping a dozen or a score of paces to its 
side, and often tempted, because of its comparative 
smoothness and the difficult brokenness of the moun¬ 
tainside over which they elected to travel, to yield utterly 
to its inviting voice. They turned back and glimpsed 
the twinkling lights of Big Pine; they lost the lights 
as they forged on; they found them again, grown fainter 
and fewer and farther away. 

Can you go on walking this way all night?’’ he asked 
her once. 

‘^All night, if we have to,” she told him simply. 

They tramped along in silence, their boots rising and 
falling regularly. The first tenseness, since human 
nerves will remain taut only so long, had passed. They 
had time for thought now, both before and after. Men¬ 
tally each was reviewing all that had occurred to-night 
and, building theoretically upon those happenings, was 
casting forward into the future. The present was a 
path of hazard, and surely the future lay shut in by 
black shadows. Yet both of them were young, and 
youth is the time of golden hopes, no matter how drearily 
embraced by stony facts. And youth, in both of them, 
despite the difference of sex, was of the same order: a 
time of wild blood; youth at its animal best, lusty, vig¬ 
orous, dauntless, devil-may-care; theirs the spirits which 
leap, hearts glad and fearless. And when, after a while, 
now and then they spoke again, there was youth play¬ 
ing up to youth in its own inevitable fashion; confidence 
asserting itself and begetting more confidence; youth 
wearing its outer cloakings with its own inimitable 
swagger. 

They had trudged along the narrow mountain road 
for a full hour or more when they heard the clattering 
noise of a horse’s shod hoofs. 


82 


TIMBER-WOLF 


‘T knew it/’ said Deveril sharply. ^‘Damn them.” 

With one accord he and she withdrew hastily, slipping 
into the convenient shadows thrown by a clump of 
trees, and peered forth through a screen of high brush. 
The hurrying hoof beats came on, up-grade, hence from 
the general direction of Big Pine. Two men, and riding 
neck and neck, driving their horses hard. The riders 
drew on rapidly; were for a fleeting moment vaguely 
outlined against a field of stars . . . swept on. 

They came with a rush, with a rush they were gone. 
But Deveril, who since he was taller, had seen more 
clearly than Lynette across the brush, turned back to 
her eagerly, wondering if she had seen what he had—if 
she had noted that one of the men loomed unusually 
large in the saddle, and how the smaller at his side rode 
lopsidedly. In all reason Bruce Standing should be 
dead by now or, at the very least, bedridden. But 
when did Timber-Wolf ever do what other men ex¬ 
pected of him ^ If he were alive and not badly hurt; 
if Lynette knew this, then what? Deveril would tell 
her, or woifld not tell her, as circumstances should de¬ 
cide for him. 

“Come on!” he cried sharply, certain that Lynette 
had not seen. “While the night and the dark last. Let’s 
hurry.” 

On and on they went until the dragging hours seemed 
endless. They saw the wheeling progress of the stars; 
they saw the pools of gloom in the woods deepen and 
darken; they felt, like thick black padded velvet, the 
silence grow deeper, until it seemed scarcely ruffled by 
the thin passing of the night air. Thus they put many 
a weary, hard-won mile between them and Big Pine. 
Hours of that monotonous lifting of boot after boot, of 
stumbling and straightening and driving on; of pushing 
through brush copses, of winding wearily among the big- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


83 

ger boles of the forest, of sliding down steep places and 
climbing up others, with always the lure of the more easy 
way of the road tempting and mocking. 

‘‘WeVe got to find water again,’' said Deveril, out of 
a long silence. ^^And weVe got to dig ourselves in for 
a day of it. The dawn’s coming.” 

For already the eastern sky stood forth in contrast 
against west and south and north, a palely glimmering 
sweep of emptiness charged with the promise of another 
day. The girl, too tired for speech, agreed with a 
weary nod. She could think of nothing now, neither of 
past nor present nor future, save of water, a long, cool 
bathing of burning mouth and throat, and after that, 
rest and sleep. Her whole being was resolved into an 
aching desire for these two simple balms to jaded nature. 
Water and then sleep. And let the coming day bring 
what it chose. 

Long ago the mountain air, rare and sweet and clean, 
had grown cold, but their bodies, warmed by exertion, 
were unaware of the chill. But now, with fatigue work¬ 
ing its will upon every laboring muscle, they began to 
feel the cold. Lynette began shivering first; Deveril, 
when they stopped a little while for one of their brief 
rests, began to shiver with her. 

Water was not to be found at every step in these 
mountains; they labored on another three or four miles 
before they found it. Then they came to a singing 
brook which shot under a little log bridge, and there 
they lay flat, side by side, and drank their fill. 

^^And now, fair lady, to bed,” said Deveril, looking at 
her curiously and making nothing of her expression, 
since the starlight hid more than it disclosed, and giving 
her as little glimpse of his own look. ^^And when, I 
wonder, did you ever lay you down to sleep as you must 
to-night?” 


84 


TIMBER-WOLF 


But he did see that she shivered. And yet, bravely 
enough, she answered him, saying: 

“Beggars must not be choosers, fair sir; and methinks 
we should go down on our knees and offer up our thanks 
to Our Lady that we live and breathe and have the 
option of choosing our sleeping places this night.’’ 

She had caught his cue, and her readiness threw him 
into a mood of light laughter; he had drunk deep, and 
his youthful resilience buoyed him up, and he found life, 
as always, a game far away and more than worth the 
candle. 

“You say truly, my fair lady,” he said in mock grav¬ 
ity. “’Tis better to sleep among the bushes than dan¬ 
gling at the end of a brief stretch of rope.” 

But with all of their lightness of speech, which, after 
all, was but the symbol of youth playing up to youth, 
the prospect was dreary enough, and in their hearts there 
was little laughter. And the cold bit at them with its 
icy teeth. A fire would have been more than welcome, 
a thing to cheer as well as to warm; but a fire here, 
on the mountainside, would have been a visible token 
of brainlessness; it would throw its warmth five feet and 
its betraying light as many miles. 

So, in the cold and dark they chose their sleeping 
place. Into a tangle of fragrant bushes, not twenty 
paces from the Buck Valley road, they crawled on 
hands and knees, as they had crawled into that first 
thicket when pursuit yelped at their heels. Here they 
came by chance upon a spot where two big pine-trees, 
standing close together companionably, upreared from 
the very heart of the brushy tangle. Lynette could 
scarcely drag her tired body here, caught and retarded 
by every twig that clutched at her clothing. For the 
first time in her vigorous life she came to understand the 
meaning of that ancient expression, “tired to death.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


85 

She felt herself drooping into unconsciousness almost 
before her body slumped down upon the earth, thinly 
covered in fallen leaves. 

“I am sleepy,'’ she murmured. Almost dead for 
sleep . . 

“You wonderful girl . . 

“Sh! I can't talk any more. I can't think; I can't 
move; I can scarcely breathe. Whether they find us 
in the morning or not ... it doesn't matter to me 
now. ... You have been good to me; be good to me 
still. And . . . good-night, Babe Deveril . . . Gentle¬ 
man!" 

He saw her, dimly, nestle down, cuddling her cheek 
against her arm, drawing up her knees a little, snuggling 
into the very arms of mother earth, like a baby finding 
its warm place against its mother’s breast. He sat 
down and slowly made himself a cigarette, and forgot 
for a long time to light it, lost in his thoughts as he 
stared at her and listened to her quiet breathing. He 
knew the moment that she went to sleep. And in his 
heart of hearts he marvelled at her and called her “a 
dead-game little sport.” She, of a beauty which he in 
all of his light adventurings found incomparable, had 
ventured with him, a man unknown to her, into the 
depths of these solitudes and had never, for a second, 
evinced the least fear of him. True, danger drove; and 
yet danger always lay in the hands of a man, her sex’s 
truest friend and greatest foe. In his hands reposed her 
security and her undoing. And yet, knowing all this, 
as she must, she lay down and sighed and went to sleep. 
And her last word, ingenuous and yet packed to the 
brim with human understanding, still rang in his ears. 

“It's worth it,” he decided, his eyes lingering with 
her gracefully abandoned figure. “The whole damn 
thing, and may the devil whistle through his fingers until 


86 


TIMBER-WOLF 


his fires burn cold! And she^s mine, and I’ll make her 
mine and keep her mine until the world goes dead. And 
my friend, Wilfred Deveril, if you’ve ever said anything 
in your life, you’ve said it now! ” 


CHAPTER VII 


Glancing sunlight, striking at him through a nest of 
tumbled boulders upon the ridge, woke Babe Deveril. 
He sat up sharply, stiff and cold and confused, wonder¬ 
ing briefly at finding himself here upon the mountain¬ 
side. Lynette was already sitting up, a huddling unit of 
discomfort, her arms about her upgathered knees, her 
hair tousled, her clothing torn, her eyes showing him 
that, though she had slept, she, too, had awaked shiv¬ 
ering and unrested. And yet, as he gathered his wits, 
she was striving to smile. 

Good morning to you, my friend.” 

He got stifily to his feet, stretching his arms up high 
above his head. 

^^At least, we he alive yet. That’s something, Lyn¬ 
ette.” 

^Ht’s everything!” Emulating him she sprang up, 
scornfully disregarding cramped body, her triumphant 
youth ignoring those little pains which shot through her 
as pricking reminders of last night’s endeavors. ‘‘To 
live, to breathe, to be alive . . . it’s everything!” 

“When one thinks back upon the possibilities of last 
night,” he answered, “the reply is ‘Yes.’ Good morn¬ 
ing, and here’s hoping that you had no end of sweet 
dreams.” 

She looked at him curiously. 

“I did dream,” she said. “Did you?” 

“ No. When I slept, I slept hard. And your dreams ? ” 

“Were all of two men. Of you and another man, 
Timber-Wolf, you call him—^Bruce Standing. I heard 
him call you ‘Baby Devil’! That got into my dreams. 
I thought that we three . . .” 

87 



88 


TIMBER-WOLF 


She broke off, and still her eyes, fathomless, mysteri¬ 
ous, regarded him strangely. 

“Well?” he demanded. “We three?” 

She shivered. And, knowing that he had seen, she 
exclaimed quickly: 

“That’s because I’m cold! I’m near frozen. Can’t 
we have a fire?” 

“But the dream?” he insisted. 

“Dreams are nothing by the time they’re told,” she 
answered swiftly. “So why tell them? And the fire?” 

“No,” he told her, suddenly stubborn, and resentful 
that he could not have free entrance into her sleeping- 
life. “We went without it when we needed it most; 
now the sun’s up and we don’t need it; since, above 
everything, there’s no breakfast to cook.” 

“So you woke up hungry, too?” 

“Hungry? I was eating my supper when first you 
showed upon my horizon. And, what with looking at 
you or trying to look at you, I let half of my supper go 
by me! I’d give a hundred dollars right this minute 
for coffee and bacon and eggs! ” 

“You want a lot for a hundred dollars,” she smiled 
back at him. Her hands were already busy with her 
tumbled hair, for always was Lynette purely feminine 
to her dainty finger-tips. “I’d give all of that just for 
coffee alone.” 

“Come,” said Deveril, “Let’s go. Are you ready?” 

“To move on? Somewhere, anywhere? And to 
search for breakfast? Yes; in a minute.” 

First, she worked her way back through the brush, 
down into the creek bed, and for a little while, as she 
bathed her face and neck and arms, and did the most 
that circumstances permitted at making her morning 
toilet, she was lost to his following eyes. Slowly he 
rolled himself a cigarette; that, with a man, may take 


TIMBER-WOLF 


89 

the place of breakfast, serving to blunt the edge of a 
gnawing appetite. Long draughts of icy cold water 
served her similarly. She stamped her feet and swung 
her arms and twisted her body back and forth, striving 
to drive the cold out and get her blood to leaping warmly. 
Then, before coming back to him, she stood for a long 
time looking about her. 

All the wilderness world was waking; she saw the 
scampering flash of a rabbit; the little fellow came to 
a dead halt in a grassy open space, and sat up with 
drooping forepaws and erect ears; she could fancy his 
twitching nose as he investigated the morning air to 
inform himself as to what scents, pleasurable, friendly, 
inimical, lay upon it. 

“In case he is hungry, after nibbling about half the 
night,’’ she mused “he knows just where to go for his 
breakfast.” 

The rabbit flapped his long ears and went about his 
business, whatever it may have been, popping into the 
thicket. There grew in a pretty grove both willows and 
wild cherry; beyond them a tall scattering of cotton¬ 
woods; on the rising slope scrub-pines and juniper. 
And while she stood there, looking down, she heard some 
quail calling, and saw half a dozen sparrows busily be¬ 
ginning office hours, as it were, going about their day’s 
affairs. And one and all of these little fellows knew 
just what he was about, and where to turn to a satis¬ 
fying menu. When, returning to Deveril, she confided 
in him something of her findings, which would go to in¬ 
dicate that man was a pretty inefficient creature when 
stood alongside the creatures of the wild, Deveril re¬ 
torted : 

“Let them eat their fill now; before night we’ll be 
eating them!” 

“You haven’t even a gun . . .” 


90 


TIMBER-WOLF 


‘‘I could run a scared rabbit to death, I’m that 
starved! And now suppose we get out of this.” 

The sun was striking at the tops of the yellow pines 
on the distant ridge; the light was filtering downward; 
shadows were thinning about them and even in the 
ravine below. Walking stiffly, until their bodies grad¬ 
ually grew warm with the exertion, and always keeping 
to the thickest clump of trees or tallest patch of 
brush, they began to work their way down into the 
canon. The sun ran them a race, but theirs was the 
victory; it was still half night in the great cleft among 
the mountains when they slid down the last few feet 
and found more level land underfoot, and the green¬ 
sward of the wild-grass meadow fringing the lower 
stream. The canon creek went slithering by them, cold 
and glassy-clear, whitening over the riffles, falling musi¬ 
cally into the pools, dimpling and ever ready to break 
into widening circles, a smiling, happy stream. And in 
it, they knew, were trout. They stood for a moment, 
catching breath after the steep descent, looking into it. 

“ I wonder if you have a pin,” said Deveril. 

She pK)ndered the matter, struck immediately by the 
aptness of the suggestion; he could see how she wrinkled 
her brows as she tried to remember if possibly she had 
made use of a pin in getting dressed the last time. 

^^I’ve a hairpin or two left. I wonder if we could 
make that do?” 

‘‘Just watch and see!” he exclaimed joyously. 

In putting her tumbled hair straight just now she had 
discovered two pins, which, even when her hair had come 
down about her shoulders, had happened to catch in a 
little snarl in the thick tresses; these she had saved and 
used in making her morning toilet. Now she took her 
hair down again and presented him with the two pins, 
gathering her hair up in two thick, loose braids, while 


TIMBER-WOLF 


91 

with curious eyes he watched her; and as curiously, the 
thing done, she watched him busy himself with the pins. 

A few paces farther on, creeping forward under the 
willow branches, they came to a spot where the creek 
banks were clear of brush along a narrow grassy strip, 
which, however, was screened from the mountainside by 
a growth of taller trees. Here Deveril went to work on 
his improvised fish-hook. One hairpin he put carefully 
into his pocket; the other he bent rudely into the required 
shape, making an eye in one end by looping and twisting. 
The other end, that intended for the hungry mouth of a 
greedy trout, he regarded long and without enthusiasm. 

“Too blunt, to begin with; next, no barb, too smooth; 
and, finally, the thing bends too easily. Hairpins should 
be made of steel! ’’ 

But at least two of the defects could be simply reme¬ 
died up to a certain though not entirely satisfactory 
point. He squatted down and, employing two hard 
stones, hammered gently at the malleable wire until he 
flattened out the end of it into a thin blade with sharp, 
jagged edges. Then, using his pocket-knife, he man¬ 
aged to cut several little slots in this thin blade, so 
that there resulted a series of roughnesses which were 
not unlike barbs; whereas he could put no great faith 
in any one of them holding very securely, at least, taken 
all together, they would tend toward keeping his hook, 
if once taken, from slipping out so smoothly. He re¬ 
bent his pin and suddenly looked up at her with a flash¬ 
ing grin. 

He robbed one of his boots of its string; he cut the 
first likely willow wand. Without stirring from his spot 
he dug in the moist earth and got his worm. And then, 
motioning her to be very still, he crept a few feet farther 
along the brook, found a pool which pleased him, hid 
behind a clump of bushes and gently lowered his baited 


92 


TIMBER-WOLF 


hook toward the shadowy surface. And before the 
worm touched the water, a big trout saw and leaped 
and struck . . . and did a clean job of snatching the 
worm off without having appeared to so much as touch 
the bent hairpin! 

Three quiet sounds came simultaneously: the splash 
of the falling fish, a grunt from Deveril, a gasp from 
Lynette. Deveril, thinking she was about to speak, 
glared at her in savage admonition for silence; she un¬ 
derstood and remained motionless. Slowly he crept 
back to the spot where he had dug his worm, and 
scratched about until he had two more. One of them 
went promptly to his hook, while he held the other in 
reserve. Again he approached his pool, again he low¬ 
ered his bait about the bush. This time the offering 
barely touched the water before the trout struck again. 
Now Deveril was ready for him, deftly manoeuvring his 
pole; his string tautened, his willow bent, the fat, glis¬ 
tening trout swung above the racing water . . . Lynette 
was already wondering how they were going to cook 
it! . . . There was again a splash, and Deveril stood 
staring at a silly-looking hairpin, dangling at the end of 
an absurd boot-lace. For now the hairpin failed to pre¬ 
sent the vaguest resemblance to any kind of a hook; the 
trout’s weight had been more than sufficient to straighten 
it out so that the fish slipped off. 

Gradually, moving on noiseless feet, the girl withdrew; 
her last glimpse of Deveril, before she slipped out of 
sight among the willows, showed her his face, grim in its 
set purpose. He was trying the third time, and she be¬ 
lieved that he would stand there without moving all day 
long, if necessary. In the meantime she was done with 
inactivity and watching; doing nothing when there was 
much to be done irked her. 

Withdrawn far enough to make her certain that no 


TIMBER-WOLF 


93 


chance sound made by her would disturb his trout, she 
went on through the grove and across little grassy open 
spaces flooring the canon, making her way further up¬ 
stream. When a hundred yards above him, she turned 
about a tangled thicket and came upon the creek where 
it flashed through shallows. All of her life she had lived 
in the mountains; as a little girl, many a day had she fol¬ 
lowed a stream like this, bickering away down the most 
tempting of wild places; and more than once, l3dng by a 
tiny clear pool, had she caught in her hands one of the 
quick fishes, just to set him in a little lakelet of her own 
construction, where she played with him before letting 
him go again. To-day ... if she could catch her fish 
first! While Deveril, man-like, taking all such respon¬ 
sibilities upon his own shoulders, cursed silently and 
achieved nothing beyond loss of bait and loss of tem¬ 
per! 

Up-stream, always keeping close to the merrily musi¬ 
cal water, she made her slow way until she found a likely 
spot. At the base of a tiny waterfall was a big smooth 
rock; the water from above, glassily smooth in its well- 
worn channel, struck upon the rock and was divided 
briefly into two streams. One of them, the lesser, poured 
down into a small, rock-rimmed pool; the other, deflected 
sharply, sped down another course, to rejoin its fellow a 
few feet below the pool. 

It was to the pool itself, half shut off from the main 
current, that Lynette gave her quickened attention. 
She crept closer, noiseless, peeping over. A sudden dark 
gleam, the quick, nervous steering of a trout rewarded 
her. She stood still, making a profound study of what 
lay before her; in what the rock-edged pool aided and 
wherein it would present difficulties. Scarcely more than 
a trickle of water poured out at the lower side; she could 
hastily pile up a few stones there, and so construct a 


94 


TIMBER-WOLF 


wall insurmountable to the trout if minded to escape 
down-stream. Then she looked to the far side, where 
the water slipped in. She could lay a few broken limbs 
across the rock there and build up a rampart of stones 
and turf upon it, and so deflect nearly all of the incom¬ 
ing water. Both these things done, she could, if need 
be, bail the pool out, and so come with certainty upon 
whatever fish had blundered into it. She began to hope 
that she would find a dozen! 

Twice, standing upon the glassy rocks, she slipped; 
once she got soaking wet to her knee; another time she 
saved herself from a thorough drenching in the ice-cold 
stream only at the cost of plunging one arm down in¬ 
to it, elbow-deep. She shivered but kept steadily on. 

She heard a bird among the bushes and started, think¬ 
ing that here came Deveril; she fancied him with a 
string of fish in his hand, laughing at her. Impulsively 
she called to him. 

The close walls of the ravine shut in her voice; the 
thickets muffled it; the splash and gurgle of the tum¬ 
bling water drowned it out. She stood very still, hushed; 
now suddenly the silence, the loneliness, the bigness of 
the wilderness closed in about her. She looked about 
fearfully, half expecting to see men spring out from 
behind every boulder or tree trunk. She longed sud¬ 
denly to see Babe Deveril coming up along the creek to 
her. She w’as tempted to break into a run racing back 
to him. 

She caught herself up short. All this was oniy a fool¬ 
ish flurry in her breast, conjured up by that sudden 
realization of loneliness when her quickened voice died 
away into the whispered hush of the still solitudes. For 
an instant that feeling of being alone had overpowered 
her, or threatened to do so; then her only thought had 
been of Babe Deveril; she could have rushed fairly into 


TIMBER-WOLF 


95 


his arms, so did her emotions drive her. Now she found 
time to puzzle over herself; it struck her now, for the 
first time, how she had fled unquestioningly into this 
wilderness with a man. A man whom she did not even 
know. That hasty headlong act of hers would seem 
to indicate a trust of a sort. But did she actually 
trust Babe Deveril, with those keen, cutting eyes of his 
and the way he had of looking at a girl, and the whole 
of his reckless and dare-devil personality ? Lynette 
Brooke had not lived in a cave ail of her brief span of 
life; nor had she grown into slim girlhood and the full 
bud of her glorious youth without more than one look 
into a mirror. Vapidly vain she was not; but clear- 
visioned she was, and she knew and was glad for the 
vital, vivid beauty which was hers and thanked God for 
it. And she glimpsed, if somewhat vaguely, that to a 
man like Babe Deveril, taking life lightly, there was no 
lure beyond that of red lips and sparkling eyes. How 
far could she be sure of him ? She went back with slow 
steps to her trout; she was glad that Babe Deveril had 
not heard and come running to her just then. But when 
Deveril did come, carrying two gleaming trout, she 
masked her misgivings and lifted a laughing face toward 
his triumphant one. 

‘‘We eat, Lynette!’’ he announced gaily. 

Suddenly his eyes warmed to the picture she made, 
paying swift tribute to the tousled, flushed beauty of 
her. His glance left her face and ran swiftly down her 
form; she felt suddenly as though her wet clothing were 
plastered tight to her. 

‘^You can finish this,” she told him swiftly, “if you 
want to take any more fish.” 

“But, look here! Where are you going? Break¬ 
fast . . . 

Her teeth were beginning to chatter. 


96 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“I^m going to try to get dry. You can start break¬ 
fast or . . 

She fled, and called herself a fool for growing scarlet, 
as she knew that she did; as though two burning rays 
had been directed full upon her back, she could feel his 
look as she ran from him; she could not quickly enough 
vanish from his keen eyes, beyond the thicket. And 
how on earth she was going to get dry again until the 
sun stood high in the sky, she did not in the least know. 
She could wring out the free water; she could make flails 
of her arms and run up and down until she got warm. 
. . . If only she had a fire; but that would be fool¬ 
hardy, the smoke arising to stand a signal for miles of 
their whereabouts. . . . 

And until this moment she had not thought of how 
they were to convert freshly caught fish into an edible 
breakfast! How, without fire? She began to shiver 
again, from head to foot now, and, confronted by her 
own problem, that of getting warm and dry, she was 
content to leave all other solutions to Deveril. 

When half an hour later she returned to him, she 
found him smoking a cigarette and crouching over a bed 
of dying coals, whereon certain tempting morsels lay; 
Deveril was turning them this way and that; with the 
savory odor of the grilling fish there arose from the em¬ 
bers a whiff of the green sage-leaves which he had 
plucked at the slope of the canon and laid first on his 
bed of coals. Crisp mountain-trout, garnished with 
sage! And plenty of clear, cold, sparkling water to 
drink thereafter! Truly a morning repast for king and 
queen. 

“I hope they keep us on the run for a month !’’ Deveril 
greeted her. ^‘I haven’t had this much fun for a dozen 
years!” 

^^But your fire?” she asked anxiously. Aren’t you 
afraid? The smoke?” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


97 


‘‘Where there’s smoke, there’s always fire,” he told 
her lightly. “But when a man’s on the dodge, as we 
are, he can have a fire that gives out almighty little 
smoke 1 It’s all bone-dry wood, with only the handful 
of sage and a few crisscross willow sticks. Look up, 
and see how much smoke you can see!” 

He had built his small blaze, ringed about by some 
rocks, in the heart of a small grove of trees which stood 
forty or fifty feet high; he had got his fire burning with 
strong, clean flames, from a handful of dry leaves and 
twigs; Lynette, looking up, could make out only the 
faintest bluish-gray wisp of smoke against the gray- 
green of the leaves. She understood; always it was in¬ 
evitable that they must accept whatever chances the 
moment brought them, yet it was not at all likely that 
their faint plume of smoke, vanishing among the tree- 
tops, would ever draw the glance of any human eye 
other than their own. 

“I’ll tell you ...” began Deveril, and broke short off 
there, as she and he, alert and tense once more, reminded 
that they were fugitives, listened to a sudden sound dis¬ 
turbing their silence. A sound unmistakable—a man at 
no great distance from them, but, fortunately, upon the 
farther side of the stream, and thus beyond the double 
screen of willows, was breaking his way through the 
brush. Both Deveril and Lynette crouched low, peering 
through the bushes. They could only make out that 
the man was coming up-stream. Once they caught a 
vague, blurred glimpse of his legs, faded overalls and 
ragged boots. Then they lost him entirely. They knew 
when he stopped and both waited breathlessly to know 
if he had come upon some sign of their own trail. But 
once more he went on, but now in such silence, as he 
crossed a little open spot, that they could scarcely make 
out a sound. Had it not been for the willows interven- 



TIMBER-WOLF 


98 

ing, they could then have answered their own question, 
“Who is it?”—a question just now of supreme impor¬ 
tance, of the importance of life and death. They lay 
lower; they strove as never before to catch some glimpse 
that would tell them what they wanted to know. The 
man stopped again; again went on. There was some¬ 
thing guarded about his movements; they felt that he 
must have seen their tracks, that he was seeking in a 
roundabout way to come unexpectedly upon them. And 
then, because there was a narrow natural avenue through 
the brush, they were given one clear, though fleeting 
glimpse, of him ... of his face—a face as tense and 
watchful as their own had been . . . the face of Mex¬ 
icali Joe. 


CHAPTER VIII 


A GLIMPSE, scarcely more it was, had been given them 
of Mexicali Joe^s face. And at a considerable distance, 
at least for the reading of a man’s look. But yet they 
marked how the face was haggard and drawn and fur¬ 
tive. Joe had no inkling of their presence. He had not 
seen their wisp of smoke; there was no wind setting 
toward him to carry him the smell of cooking trout. 
Plainly he had no desire for company other than his own. 
He, no less than they, fled from all pursuit. Again he 
was lost to them; he vanished, gone up-stream, beyond 
the thickets, no faintest sound of his footfalls coming 
back to them. From him they turned to each other, 
the same expression from the same flooding thought in 
their eyes. 

We’re on the jump and we’ll keep on the jump!” 
said Deverfl softly. ‘^And at the same time, Lynette 
Brooke, we’ll stick as close as the Lord’ll let us to Mexi¬ 
cali Joe’s coat-tails! Don’t you worry; he’ll go back as 
sure as shooting to his gold-mine, if only to make cer¬ 
tain that no one else has squatted on it. And where he 
drives a stake, we’ll drive ours right alongside!” 

“It’s funny . . . that he hasn’t gotten any further 
. . . that he should come this way, too ...” 

“No telling how long he had to lie still while the pack 
yelped about his hiding-place; that he came this way 
means only one thing. And that is that our luck is with 
us, and we’re headed as straight as he is toward his 
prospect hole. Ready? Let’s follow him!” 

She jumped up. But before they started they gath¬ 
ered up, to the last small bit, what was left of their fish; 

99 


> ^ > 


lOO 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Deveril made the small bundle, fish enwrapped in leaves, 
with a handkerchief about the whole. 

If he should hear us ? ’’ she whispered. If he should 
lie in waiting and see us?” 

He chuckled. 

^‘In any case, well have it on him! He canT know 
that we’re on the run, too; he got away too fast for that. 
And even if he should know, what would he do about 
it? He has no love for Taggart, anyway; and he has 
no wish to get himself into the hands of that mob that 
he has just ducked away from, like a rabbit dodging a 
pack of hounds. If he catches us . . . why, then, we 
catch him at the same time! Come on.” 

Thus began the second lap of their journey; thus they, 
fleeing, followed like shadows upon the traces of one 
who fled. For Mexicali Joe would obviously keep to the 
bed of the canon; if he forsook it in order to climb up 
either slope to a ridge above, he must of necessity pass 
through the more sparsely timbered spaces, where he 
would run constantly into danger of being seen. The 
only danger to their plans lay with the possibility that 
he might overhear sounds of their following and might 
draw a little to one side and hide in some dense copse, 
and so let them go by. But they had the advantage 
from the beginning; they knew he was ahead, and he 
did not know that they followed; so long as they, listen¬ 
ing always, did not hear him ahead, there was little dan¬ 
ger of him hearing them coming after him. With all the 
noise of the water, tumbling over falls and splashing 
along over rocks, singing cheerily to itself at every step, 
there was small likelihood of any one of the three cau¬ 
tious footfalls being heard. . . . 

There were the times, so intent were they following 
the Mexican, when they forgot what was after all the main 
issue; forgot that they, too, were followed. For the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


lOI 


newer phase of the game was more zestful just now than 
the other; they had neither glimpsed nor heard anything 
since the passing of the two riders last night to hint 
that any danger of discovery threatened them. They 
spoke seldom, only now and then, pausing briefly, in 
lowered voices, as the speculations which had been oc¬ 
cupying both minds, demanded expression. Thus they 
were always confronted by some new problem; at first, 
and for a mile or more, they had full confidence that 
they had Joe straight ahead of them. But presently 
they approached a fork of the canon; it became impera¬ 
tive to know if Joe had gone up the right or the left 
ravine. And here, where most they wanted a glimpse 
of him, they had scant hope of seeing him, so dense was 
the timber growth; he would keep close to the bed of the 
stream, at times walking in the water so that the net¬ 
work of branches from the brushy tangle on both banks 
would make for him a dim alleyway, like a tunnel. 
They could not hope to hear him; they could not count 
on finding his tracks, since none would be left upon the 
rocks and the rushing water held none. 

But they were alert, ears critical of the slightest rus¬ 
tling, eyes never keener. And, their good fortune hold¬ 
ing firm, when they came to the forking of the ways, 
that which they had not hoped for, a track upon a hard 
rock, set them right. For here Joe, but a few score yards 
ahead of them, had slipped, and had crawled up over a 
boulder, and there was still the wet trace of his passing, 
a sign to vanish, drying, while they looked on it. Joe 
had gone on into the deeper canon, headed in the direc¬ 
tion which last night they had elected for their own, 
driving on toward the heart of the wilderness country. 

They were no less relieved at finding what was the 
man’s likely general direction than at making sure that 
they were still almost at his heels. For they had come 


102 


TIMBER-WOLF 


to realize that, to explain Joe’s presence here, there 
were two directly opposing possibilities to consider: It 
was imaginable that Joe would be making straight for 
his gold; and it was just as reasonable that his craft 
might have suggested to him to head in an opposite 
direction. Now that they might follow him and still 
be going direct upon their own business, they were for 
the moment content upon all points. 

Deveril, for the most part, went ahead; now and then 
he paused a moment for the girl to come up with him. 
But never did he have to wait long. He began to won¬ 
der at her; they had covered many hard miles last night; 
more hard miles this morning. How long, he asked 
himself, as his eyes sought to read hers, could such a 
slender, altogether feminine, blush-pink girl stand up 
under such relentless hardship as this flight promised 
to give them ? And always he went on again, reassured 
and admiring; her eyes remained clear, her regard 
straight and cool. A girl unafraid; the true daughter 
of dauntless, hot-blooded parents. 

And she, watching his tall, always graceful form lead¬ 
ing the way, found ample time to wonder about him. 
She had seen him last night burst in through a window 
and take the time coolly, though already the hue and 
cry was breaking at his contemptuous heels, to rifle a 
man’s pockets. There was an indelible picture: the 
debonair Babe Deveril, who had stepped unquestion- 
ingly into her fight, going down on his knees before his 
fallen kinsman . . . calmly bent upon robbery. For 
she had seen the bank-notes in his hand. 

The sun rose high and crested all the ridges with 
glorious light, and poured its golden warmth down into 
the steep canons. But, now that shadows began to 
shrink and the little open spaces lay revealed in detail, 
fresh labor was added in that they were steadily harder 


TIMBER-WOLF 


103 


driven to keep to cover; all day long, at intervals, they 
were to have glimpses of the Buck Valley road, high 
above upon the mountain flank, and at each view of 
the road they understood that a man up there might 
have caught a glimpse of them. Ten o’clock came and 
found them doggedly following along the way which 
they held the viewless Mexicali Joe must have taken 
before them. They paused and stooped to the invita¬ 
tion of the creek, and thereafter ate what was left them 
of their grilled trout. Having eaten, they drank again; 
and having drunk, they again took up the trail. . . . 

“If you can stand the pace?” queried Deveril over his 
shoulder. And she read in the glearn in his eyes that 
he was set on seeing this thing through; on sticking close 
to Mexicali Joe until he came, with Joe, upon his se¬ 
cret. 

“Why, of course!” she told him lightly, though al¬ 
ready her body ached. 

It was not over an hour later when they set their 
feet in a trail which they were confident Mexicali Joe 
had followed; from the moment they stepped into the 
trail they watched for some trace of him, but the hard, 
rain-washed, rocky way which only a mountaineer could 
have recognized as a trail, was such as to hold scant 
sign, if the one who travelled it but exercised precau¬ 
tion. Babe Deveril, with his small knowledge of these 
mountains, held it the old short-cut trail from Timkin’s 
Bar, long disused, since Timkin’s Bar itself had a score 
of years ago died the death of short-lived mining towns. 
Brush grew over it, and again and again it vanished 
underfoot, and they were hard beset to grop>e forward 
to it again. Yet trail of a sort it was, and it set them 
to meditating: Tunkin’s Bar, in the late ’8o’s, had 
created a gold furor, and then, after its short and hectic 
life, had been abandoned, as an orange, sucked dry by 


104 


TIMBER-WOLF 


a child, is thrown aside. Was it possible that among 
the old diggings Mexicali Joe had stumbled upon a vein 
which the old-timers had overlooked? 

At any rate, the trail lured them along, winding in 
their own general direction; and Mexicali Joe still fled 
ahead. Of this latter fact they had evidence when they 
came to the unmistakable sign ... to watchful eyes 
. . . of his recent passing: here, on the steep, ill-defined 
trail he had slipped, and had caught at the branches of 
a wild cherry. They saw the furrow made by his boot- 
heel and the scattered leaves and broken twigs. 

Gradually the trail led them up out of the canon-bed, 
snaking along the flank of the mountain. And gradually 
they were entering the great forest land of yellow pines. 
If not already in Timber-Wolf’s country, here was the 
border-line of his monster holdings: few men could draw 
the line exactly between the wide-reaching acres which 
were his and those contiguous acres which were a por¬ 
tion of the government reserve. Standing himself had 
quarrelled with the government upon the matter and 
what was more, after no end of litigation, had won a 
point or two. 

Once they diverged from the trail to climb and slide 
to the bottom of the canon for a long drink. But this 
and the sheer ascent took them in their hurry only a 
few minutes. Again they took up the trail. It was 
high noon and they were tired. But, alike disdainful 
of fatigue, driven and lured, they pressed on. 

Suddenly she startled him by catching him by the 
arm and whispering warningly: 

^^Sh! Some one is following us 

In another moment, drawing back from the trail, 
they were hidden among the wild cherries in a little 
side ravine. 

“Where?” he demanded, his voice hushed like hers. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


105 

as he peered back along the way they had come. “Who? 
How many of them?” 

“I didn’t see,” she answered. 

“What did you hear?” 

“Nothing ... I just know ... I felt that some one 
was trailing us just as we are trailing Mexicali Joe! I 
feel it now; I know!” 

“But you had something—something that you saw or 
heard—to tell you?” 

She shook her head. And he saw, wondering at her, 
that she was very deeply in earnest as she admitted: 

“No. Nothing! But I know. I tell you, I know. 
Can’t you feel that there is some one back there, follow¬ 
ing us, spying on us, hiding and yet dogging every step 
we take? Can’t you feel it?” 

She saw him shaken with silent laughter. She under¬ 
stood that he, a man, was convulsed with laughter at 
the imaginings of her, a maid. And yet, also, since she 
was quick-minded, she noted how his laughter was 
silent! He meant her to see that he put no credence 
in her suspicions; and yet, for all that, he was impressed, 
and he did take care that no one, who might follow them, 
should overhear him 1 

“One doesn’t feel things like that,” he told her, as 
though positive. But in the telling he kept his voice 
low, so that it was scarcely louder than her own whisper. 

“One does,” she retorted. “And you know it. Babe 
Deveril!” 

“But,” he challenged her, “were you right, and were 
there a man or several men back there tracking us, why 
all this caution on their parts? What would they be 
waiting for, being armed themselves and knowing us 
unarmed? What better place than this to take us in? 
Why give us a minute’s chance to slip away in the 
.brush?” 


io6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


‘‘I donT know/^ She shrugged, and again he mar¬ 
velled at her; she looked like one who had little vital 
concern in what any others, pursuing, might or might 
not do. 

Despite his cool determination to adhere to calm rea¬ 
son and to discount feminine impressionism, which he 
held to be fostered by a nervous condition brought 
about by overexertion. Babe Deveril began to feel, as 
she felt, that there was something more than imagina¬ 
tion in her contention. How does a man sense things 
which no one of his five senses can explain to him ? He 
could not see any reason in this abrupt change in both 
their moods; and yet, none the less, it seemed to him, 
all of a sudden, as though eyes were spying on him from 
behind every pine trunk, and from the screen of every 
thicket. 

“Joe won’t escape us in a hurry,” he muttered. “Not 
in this canon. And we’ll see this thing through. Let’s 
sit tight and watch.” 

And so, with that inexplicable sense that here in the 
wilderness they were not yet free from pursuit, they 
crouched in the bushes and bent every force of every 
sense to detect their fancied pursuers. But the forest 
land, sun-smitten, a playland of light and shadow and 
tremulous breeze, lay steeped in quiet about them, and 
they saw nothing moving save the gently stirring leaves 
and occasional birds; half a dozen sparrows briefly stayed 
their flight upon a shrub in flower with pale-pink blos¬ 
soms; a bevy of quail, forty strong, marched away 
through the narrow roadways under the low, drooping 
branches, with crested topknots bobbing; the forest land 
murmured and whispered and sang softly, and seemed 
empty of any other human presence than their own. 
And yet they waited, and at the end of their waiting, 
grown nervous despite themselves, though they had had 


TIMBER-WOLF 


107 


no slightest evidence that pursuit was drawing close 
upon their heels, they were not able to shake from them 
that feeling that danger, the danger from which they 
fled, was become a near-drawn menace. And all the 
more to be feared in that it approached so silently, 
covertly, hidden and ready to strike when their guard 
was down. 

‘‘Just the same,” said Deveril, deep in his own mus- 
ings, “it canT be Jim Taggart, for that’s not Taggart’s 
way, having the goods on a man, and, besides, I fancy 
I put him out of the running.” Then he looked at her 
curiously, and added: “And it can’t be Bruce Stand¬ 
ing, since you put him down and out and . . .” 

It was the first time that such a reference to the past 
had been made. Now she startled him by the quick 
vehemence of her denial, saying: 

“I didn’t shoot Bruce Standing! I tell you . . .” 

He looked at her steadily, and she broke off, as she 
saw dawning in his eyes a look which was to be read as 
readily as were white stones to be glimpsed in the bot¬ 
tom of a clear pool. She had made her statement, and, 
whether true or false, he held it to be a lie. 

“In case they should somehow lay us by the heels,” 
he said dryly, “you would come a lot closer to clearing 
yourself by saying that you shot him in self-defense 
than in denying everything. But they haven’t got their 
ropes over our running horns yet! . . . Do you still 
feel that we are followed?” 

His look angered her; his words angered her still fur¬ 
ther. So to his question she made no reply. He looked 
at her again curiously. She refused to meet his eyes, 
coolly ignoring him. A little smile twitched at his lips. 

“It’s a poor time for good friends to fall out,” he said 
lightly. “I don’t care the snap of my fingers who shot 
him, or why. He ought to have been shot a dozen years 


TIMBER-WOLF 


io8 

ago. And now I’ll tell you what, I think, explains this 
business of some one being close behind us, if you are 
right in it. The big chance is that some one has been 
trailing Mexicali Joe all along; and dropped in behind 
us when we dropped in behind Joe. We’ve been doing 
a first-class job of sticking to cover; mind you, we haven’t 
caught a second glimpse of Joe all this time, and there¬ 
fore it is as likely as not that the gent whom you Jeel 
to be trailing us hasn’t caught a glimpse of us. If this 
is right, we’ve got a bully chance right now to prove it. 
We lie close where we are for ten minutes, and see if 
your hombre doesn’t slip on by us, nosing along after 
Joe.” ^ 

In silence she acquiesced. That sense of the near¬ 
ness of another unseen human being was insistent upon 
her. For a long time, as still as the deep-rooted trees 
about them, they crouched, listening, watching. She 
heard the watch ticking in Babe Deveril’s pocket. She 
heard her own breathing and his. She heard the brownie 
birds threshing among dead leaves. Then there was 
the eternal whispering of the pines and the faint mur- 
murings from the stream far down in the canon. At 
last it would have been a relief to straining nerves if a 
man, or two or three men, had stepped into sight in 
the trail from which she and Deveril had withdrawn. 
For more certain than ever was Lynette Brooke, though 
she could give neither rhyme nor reason for that cer¬ 
tainty, that her instincts had not tricked her. There¬ 
fore, instead of being reassured at seeing or hearing no 
one, she was depressed and made anxious; the silence be¬ 
came sinister, filled with vague threat; that she saw no 
one was explicable to her by but the one ominous condi¬ 
tion: that person or those persons were watching even 
now, and knew where she and Babe Deveril hid, and 
did not mean to stir until first their quarry stirred. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


109 


Why all this caution? She could not explain that to 
herself; if some one followed, why should that some one 
hide? Why not step out with gun levelled, and put an 
end to this grim game of hide-and-seek. 

^‘You see,’’ whispered Deveril, “there is no one be¬ 
hind us.” 

They had not moved for a full twenty minutes, and 
by now he began to convict her of nervous imaginings, 
fancies of an overwrought girl. But she answered him, 
sa 3 dng with unshaken certainty: 

“I tell you, I know! Some one has been following 
us, and now is hiding and waiting for us to go on.” 

“Well, you are right or wrong, and in either case I 
don’t fancy this job of sitting so tight I feel as though I 
were growing roots. If you should happen to be right, 
we’ll know in time, I suppose. Let’s go! ” 

To her, in her present mood, anything was better than 
inaction. They left their hiding-place, found a silent 
and hidden way a bit farther down the slope, went for¬ 
ward a hundred yards and stepped back into the faint 
trail. Their concern, each said inwardly, was to forge 
on and to follow Joe; thus they pretended within them¬ 
selves to ignore that nebulous warning that they, like 
Joe, were followed. 

And so the day wore on, a day made up of uncertainty 
and vague threat. How full the silent forest lands were 
of little sounds! For therein lies the greatest of all 
forest-land mysteries; that silence in the solitudes may 
be made audible. Uncertainty struck the key-note 
of their long day. They sought to follow Mexicali Joe; 
they did not see him, they did not hear him, they did 
not know where he was. Was he still ahead of them, 
hastening on? How far ahead? A mile by now, not 
having paused while they lost time? A hundred yards? 
Or had he turned aside? Or had he thrown himself 


no 


TIMBER-WOLF 


down flat somewhere, watching them go by ? Was he fol¬ 
lowing them, or had he struck out east or west, while 
they went on north ? And was there some one following 
them? One man? Two? More? Or none at all? 
Uncertainty. And as they grew tired and hungry, the 
great silence oppressed them, and most of all this uncer¬ 
tainty of all things began to bite in upon their nerves 
as acid eats into glass, etching its own sign. 

“I’m getting jumpy,” muttered Deveril, glaring at 
her, his eyes looking savage and stern. “ This nonsense 
of yours ...” 

“It’s not nonsense!” 

“Anyway, it’s getting on my nerves! There^s no 
sense in this sort of thing. We’re scaring ourselves like 
two kids in the dark. What’s more, we are allowing a 
pace-setter to get us to going too hard and steady a clip; 
we’ll be done in, the first thing we know. And we’ve 
got to begin figuring on where the next meal comes from. 
What I mean is, that we’ve got enough to do without 
wasting any more nerve force on what may or may not 
follow after us.” 

“Joe is still ahead of us,” she reminded him; “or, at 
any rate, we think that he is. He left last night in as 
big a hurry as we did; and he, too, came away without 
gun and fishing-tackle, and didn’t stop to get Young 
Gallup to put him up a lunch. Then, on top of all that, 
Joe knows this country better than we do.” 

“I get you!” he told her quickly. “Joe’s as ready for 
food and lodging as we are, and Joe, unless we’re wrong 
all along, is hiking ahead of us. Who knows but we’ll 
invite ourselves to dine with Sefior Joe before the day’s 
done! . . . Is that it?” 

“I don’t know how it may work out. ... I hadn’t 
gotten that far yet. ... But if Joe is headed toward 
his secret, and if he does have a provision cache some- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


III 


where in the mountains ... a few items in tinned goods 
and, maybe, even coffee and sugar and canned milk . . 

Let’s go!” broke in Deveril, half in laughter and 
half in eagerness. “You make my mouth water with 
your surmisings.” 

Here in these steep-walled narrow gorges the shadows 
lengthened swiftly after the sun had passed the zenith, 
and already, when now and then they looked search- 
ingly at what lay ahead, it was difficult to distinguish 
the shadows from the substance. They must come close 
to Joe if they meant to see him, and, by the same token, 
if a man followed them, he was confronted by the same 
difficulty. So they hurried on, walking more freely, 
keeping in the trail, climbing at times along the ridge 
flank, frequently dipping down into the lower canon. 
Babe Deveril cut himself a green cudgel from a scrub- 
oak, trimming off the twigs as he walked on. If it came 
to argument with Mexicali Joe, a club like that might 
bring persuasion.- And he fully meant that the Mexi¬ 
can should show himself generous, even to the division 
of a last crust. Always buoyed up by optimism, he was 
counting strongly on Joe’s provision cache. 

When they dropped down into the canon again, they 
saw the first star. Lynette looked up at it; it trembled 
in its field of deep blue. She was faint, almost dizzy; 
her muscles ached; fatigue bore hard upon her spirit; 
she was footsore. But, most of all, like Deveril before 
her, she was concerned with imaginings of supper. She 
pictured bacon and a tin of tomatoes and shoe-string po¬ 
tatoes sizzling in the bacon grease . . . and coflee. 
Whether with milk or sugar, or without both, no longer 
mattered. Then she sighed v/earily, and had no other 
physical nor mental occupation than that which had 
to do with the putting of one foot before the other, plod¬ 
ding on and on and on. And all the while the shadows 


II2 


TIMBER-WOLF 


deepened and thickened in the canons, and the stars 
multiplied, and the little evening breeze sharpened; she 
began to shiver. 

She could mark no trail underfoot; always Deveril, 
before her, was breaking through a tangle, always at his 
heels, she kept his form in sight; but she began to think 
that he had lost the way, and a new fear gripped her. 
Instead of dining with Joe, they were losing him, and 
now, with the utter dark already on the way, they 
would see no sign of him. And in the dark they would 
not be able to snare a trout or anything else that might 
be eaten. She got into the habit of breaking off twigs 
and chewing at them. . . . 

And all the while Deveril was rushing on, faster and 
faster. It was hard work keeping up with him. 

“WeVe got him! Stay with it, Lynette; we’ve got 
him 1” 

It was Deveril’s whisper, sharp and eager; there was 
Deveril himself just ahead of her, pausing briefly. 

‘^Come on. As fast and as quiet as you can.” 

Her heart leaped up; her life fires burned bright and 
warm again; the pain went out of her. She began to 
run. . . . 

^‘Sh! Look! Off to the left in that little clearing.” 

On the mountain slope just ahead of them she marked 
the clearing and, since there, too, the shadows were 
darkening, she saw nothing else. She wondered what 
he saw or thought that he saw. He pointed, and she, 
with straining eyes, made out a shadow which moved; 
Joe, going up a steep, open trail. And just ahead of Joe 
a dark, square-cornered blot. . . . 

^^A house ... a cabin . . .” 

‘^A dirty dugout, most likely, and from the look of 
it. But, as sure as you’re born, there’s Mexicali Joe’s 
mountain headquarters. A clump of bushes, willows, 


TIMBER-WOLF 


113 

you can be sure, not ten feet from his door; that will be 
his spring. And inside his shack ... a box of grub, 
Lady Lynette! And if Joe doesn’t have company for 
dinner. I’ll eat your hat.” 

“I haven’t any,” said Lynette. ‘^But we’d probably 
have to eat our own shoes. Come on; let’s hurry. . . . 
What are you waiting for?” 

I want to whet my appetite by loitering a while. . . , 
Listen, Lynette; after all, there’s no great hurry any 
longer. First thing, a hot supper is what is needed, and 
Joe can make as good a fire as we can. You can gamble 
that he won’t waste any time, and that he’ll cook a 
panful! ” 

“He might have only one panful . . . and he might 
start in on it cold ...” 

“And if he has only that limited amount and it belongs 
to him and he wants it, you don’t mean to say that you 
would seek to take it away from him? That’s rob¬ 
bery . . .” 

“We’ll play square with him. Babe Deveril, and give 
him exactly one-third. And man may call it robbery, 
but God and nature won’t. Come ...” 

“I’ll come with you a few steps farther. And then 
we will possess our souls in patience and will sit down 
among the bushes and will wait until we smell coffee. 
And I’ll tell you why.” 

She looked at him, wondering. And then suddenly 
she guessed somewhat of his thought, though not all of 
it. She had forgotten her own certainty that some one 
followed them; it surged back upon her now. 

“Yes,” he said, when she had spoken, “you’re on the 
right track. We are going to wait a few minutes to make 
sure. If some one was following and wanted you and me, 
he could have had no object in hanging back, spying on us. 
But if that same gent were following Mexicali Joe, he 


TIMBER-WOLF 


114 

would want to hang back, trusting to Joe to lead him 
to something worth coming at. So, out of your feeling 
IVe built my theory: That this gent thinks all the time 
he’s trailing Joe, and doesn’t know we are here at all; 
tracks in the rocky trail wouldn’t show him whether 
one or a dozen had gone over it. And I get to this point: 
How did this gent pick up Joe’s trail in the dark ? And 
I answer it by saying that he could have known that 
Joe had a dugout up here, and so lay in wait for him. 
And, that being true, by now he would be sure that Joe 
was going straight to his camp, and so, at almost any 
moment, he would give up his sneak-thief style of trav¬ 
elling and would come hurrying along. And, if that’s 
right, you and I can get a glimpse of this new hombre 
before he does*of us. It may come in handy, you 
know,” he concluded dryly, ^‘to get the first swing at 
him if he’s an ugly gent with a rifle. At short range, 
and in the dark, and stepping lively, this club of mine 
is way up. And, if we can take his rifle from him . . . 
why, then into the wilderness we go, without fear of 
starving. Which is a long speech for the end of a per¬ 
fect day, but I’m right!” 

So insistent was he and so utterly weary she, they drew 
a few lagging steps out of the trail, and sank down in 
the shadows. She lay flat; she saw the stars swimming 
in the deepening purple; her eyes closed; she felt two big 
tears of exhaustion slip out between the closed lids. 
There was a faint drumming in her ears; she no longer 
cared for food. 

. . . Get up!” Deveril was saying curtly. “I guess 
we’re both wrong. And I’m going to eat, if the devil 
drops in to join us.” 

She didn’t think she had been asleep. Nor yet that 
she had fallen prey to swift, all-engulfing unconscious¬ 
ness. Only that she had been in a mood of utter indif- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


115 

ference to all earthly matters. She tried, when he com¬ 
manded the second time, to rise. He helped her. She 
sat up. . . . She saw a little sprinkling of sparks tossed 
upward from Joe’s chimney; stars at first she thought 
them—stars wavering and blurred and uncertain. 

‘^WeVe waited long enough,” said Deveril. 

She rose wearily, making no answer. He went ahead, 
she followed. Her whole body cried out for rest; this 
brief, altogether too brief, lingering had stiffened her 
and made her sore from head to foot. She saw that 
Deveril was going up the steep trail slowly; he still strove 
for caution, no doubt planning to burst in unexpectedly 
upon Mexicali Joe. For Joe might have a gun there in 
his dugout; and he might have no great stock of pro¬ 
visions and be of no mind to share with others. So she, 
too, strove for silence. ... "A strangely familiar odor 
was afloat on the night air . . . coffee! Joe’s coffee 
was boiling. 

And then, at that moment of moments, jarring upon 
their nerves as a sudden pistol-shot might have done, 
there came up to them from the canon they had just 
quitted the sharp sound made by a man breaking in the 
dark through brush. And, with that sound, another; a 
man’s voice, a voice which both knew and yet on the 
instant were unable to place, crying sharply, unguardedly: 

‘^Come ahead, boys. There’s his dugout and we got 
him dead to rights! ” 

Down 1 ” whispered Deveril. Down 1 There’s three 
or four of them . . .” 

She dropped in her tracks, he at her side. They were 
in the little clearing; if they went back it would be to 
run into the arms of the men down there; if they went 
ahead it was to go straight on to Joe’s dugout. If they 
sought to turn to right or left, they must go through the 
longest arms of the clearing, and must certainly be seen. 


ii6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


The only shadows into which they might slip were cast 
by the clump of willows grouped in a span of half a 
dozen yards, and not over as many steps, from Joe’s 

door. . . . 

^Tnto the willows!” whispered Deveril. “Quick! 
It’s our only show.” 

They crawled, wriggling forward, inching, but inching 
swiftly. Behind them they heard voices, and a sudden 
running of heavy boots; before them they heard a pot 
or pan dropped against Joe’s stove, and then Joe’s ex¬ 
cited muttering and the scuffle of Joe’s boots. They 
scrambled on; Deveril dragged himself, with a sudden 
heave, into the fringe of the willow thicket; at his side, 
so close that elbow brushed elbow, Lynette threw her¬ 
self. They saw Joe come running out of his dugout; 
they saw him pause a second; he could have seen them, 
surely, had he looked down. But his eyes were for the 
canon below, from which the sudden voices had boomed 
up to him. And now came a voice again, that first 
voice, shouting threateningly: 

“I got you covered, Joe! With my rifle. And I’ll 
drop you dead if you move! You know me, Joe . . . 
me, Jim Taggart!” 

Still Joe hesitated . . . and was lost. Up the steep 
slope came Jim Taggart, and behind him Young Gallup; 
and after Gallup, Gallup’s man. Cliff Shipton. And every 
man of them carried a rifle, held in readiness. Joe began 
to swear in Spanish, his voice shaken, quavering with 
the fear upon him. 

Deveril put out his hand until it lay upon Lynette’s 
arm; his fingers gave her a quick, warning squeeze. 
Taggart and the others were coming on swiftly; it was 
almost too much to hope that they could pass and not 
see the two figures outstretched in the willows. Still, 
there was the chance, slim chance as it was. . . . 

If only Joe, poor stupid fool, as Deveril savagely called 


TIMBER-WOLF 


117 

him in his heart, would make a bolt for it! Then thereM 
surely be such a drawing of their eyes to him that they 
would not see a white elephant tethered at the door! 
But Joe stood as if his feet had grown into the ground. 
Save for his continued mutterings, as Joe poured forth 
his eloquent Spanish curses, he would have appeared a 
man bereft of all volition. And Taggart and Young 
Gallup and Shipton came on at a run. Deveril clutched 
his club; he turned an inch or two to be ready. Lynette, 
lying so close to him, felt his body stiffen and guessed 
his purpose, and this time it was her hand closing tight 
upon his forearm, warning him to hold to caution as 
long as there was hope. 

The three came steadily on, hastening all that they 
could up the steep slope. A moment ago, when first 
Taggart called out, Joe might have eluded them had he 
been lightning-swift and ready to take chances. But 
now that he had hesitated, it was clear that his most 
shadowy hope of escape was gone. He stood motion¬ 
less, cursing them and his luck. 

Babe DeveriFs fingers were tight, as tight as rage 
could weld them about his oak stick. At that moment 
he could have welcomed the excuse to leap out with the 
unexpectedness of a cataclysm and the rush of a cata¬ 
pult, to heave his club upward and bring it down, full 
force, upon Taggart^s head. For now he had the added 
rancour in his heart that Jim Taggart, with his following, 
had chosen this one moment to come up with them, just 
as Babe Deveril was counting in full confidence upon 
the first square meal in twenty-four hours. Taggart, 
less than threatening his safety, was stealing the supper 
which he had counted on having from Mexicali Joe. 

Jim Taggart began to laugh, more in malice than in 
mirth, and, most of all, in an evil, gloating triumph. He 
came on, hurrying; he almost trod on Lynette’s boot. 
Instinctively she jerked away from him; yet only be- 


ii8 


TIMBER-WOLF 


cause Taggart was so gloatingly bent upon his quarry 
he did not note her movement, or must have supposed 
that he had set a stone rolling. 

‘‘Ho!’' cried Taggart. “Joe's a good kid after all, 
boys! He’s waited for us, and he's got us a piping-hot 
supper! Wonder how he guessed we were starved like 
wildcats ? " 

“Damn him!" L 3 mette heard Deveril, and her fin¬ 
gers gripped him with a new agony of warning and sup¬ 
plication for silence. 

“What’s that?" demanded Taggart, thinking that 
Gallup or Shipton had spoken. 

“You robbers!" cried Joe nervously. “Already you 
tryin' rob me, las' night. Now you tryin' rob me! I 
tell you . . 

“Shut up!” snapped Taggart. “Back into your dirty 
den and we’ll have a nice little talk with you.” 

“I tell you . . .” 

Taggart was close upon him now and caught him by 
the shoulder, flinging him about, shoving him through 
the squat door of his dugout. Slight enough was the 
diversion, but both Lynette and Deveril were thankful 
for it, for the two figures drew the eyes of both Gallup 
and Shipton and held them. Joe reeled across the 
threshold; Taggart, not knowing what weapon Joe might 
have lying on his bunk, sprang nimbly after him. And 
Gallup and Shipton, to see everything, drew on close be¬ 
hind him. They passed the willows about the spring 
and, stooping, went in at Joe's door. 

Lynette and Deveril lay very still, hesitating to move 
hand or foot. For both Gallup and Shipton stood on 
Joe's threshold, and that threshold was a few steps only 
from their hiding-place. The snapping of a twig, the 
crackling of a handful of dead leaves must certainly 
bring swift, searching eyes upon them. 


CHAPTER IX 


^^The first half chance we get,” whispered Deveril, 
guardedly, “weVe got to sneak out of tHs! Lie still; 
I can see them without moving. That man with the 
hawk face is turned this way.” 

He could see neither Joe nor Taggart in the dugout. 
Gallup he could see, barely across the threshold now, 
watching Taggart and the Mexican. The man Ship ton, 
evidently fagged from a hard day of it, had slumped 
down on the log that served as door-step, and faced out¬ 
ward, save when now and then he half turned to glance 
curiously at the sheriff and his captive. 

we nabbed you, eh, Mexico?” gibed Taggart. 

You damn little tricky shrimp! To think you could 
put one across on me!” 

^^Gatham you!” shrilled Joe. ^‘You big t’ief, you 
try one time an’ you see! I ain’t do nothin’ to you; I 
got the right . . .” 

Oh, shut up ! ” muttered Taggart impatiently. Dry 
your palaver for once. I’ll give you chance enough to 
spill over when I get good and ready.” Outside Lynette 
and Deveril heard a sound which, in their hunger, they 
were quick to read aright; Taggart, also hungry, had 
stepped to the stove and had dragged a heavy iron fry¬ 
ing-pan to him, investigating its content. ^‘Phew!” 
growled Taggart. “You infernal garlic hound! Well, 
the jerked meat ought to go all right. And coffee, huh ? 
Come on, boys; we’ll feed up, and then we’ll tell Joe 
what’s in the wind.” 

“I ain’t got much grub,” Joe shouted back at him. 
“An’ I need it mysel’. You go. . . .” 


120 


TIMBER-WOLF 


1 


There was the sound of a blow and of scufiiing feet, 
the thudding of a body against the wall. 

“Take ihsit” Taggart told him viciously. And, his 
ugly voice thick with threat: “And thank your Dago 
saints I only used my fist! Next time, so help me. I’ll 
bash you with a rifle barrel. Say, Cliff . . 

“Say it,” drawled Cliff. 

**Scare up some dry wood; the fire’s near out. And, 
Joe, you dig up a candle or lamp or something. I’d 
like a little light in this stinking hole.” 

Joe, though with infuriated mutterings, did as bid. 
Slowly the gaunt form of Cliff Shipton rose from the 
rough-hewn log. 

“God, I’m tired,” he said. And then, when no one 
thought to sympathize, he demanded querulously: “Say, 
Mex, where’s your wood-pile?” 

Gallup laughed at him. 

“Imagine the lazy hound having a wood-pile! Skir¬ 
mish around. Cliff, and pick up some dead sticks.” 

Joe had found a stub of candle, and now its pale light 
vaguely illuminated the dugout’s interior. Since there 
was but the one opening, the squat door, Deveril still 
saw only Gallup. Gallup by now was sitting upon the 
narrow bunk at the back of the room, his rifle between 
his knees, the shadow of his hat hiding his face. Shipton 
set his own rifle down against the outside wall and began 
groping with his feet for bits of wood. 

“It’s getting awful dark for this kind of thing,” he 
was telling himself in his eternally complaining voice. 
“Ain’t he got a box or a chair or a table or something 
in there that’ll burn?” he called. 

No one paid any attention to him and Shipton, scuf¬ 
fling gropingly with his feet, widened his search. And 
now Lynette and Deveril scarcely breathed. For it 
seemed inevitable that he was coming straight toward 


TIMBER-WOLF 


I 2 I 


the brushy-fringed spring where they lay. Deveril was 
now on his left elbow, his body raised slightly, his legs 
drawn up under him, so that he could readily fling him¬ 
self to his feet, his oak club in his right hand. Lynette 
understood and was ready, too; if Ship ton came danger¬ 
ously near, she knew that it was Deveril’s intent to drop 
him in his tracks. Then there would remain but the 
one thing to do; to leap up and run for it, run blindly, 
plunging into the nearest shadows, to run on and on 
while men shot after them. 

Ship ton came nearer. She felt Babe Deveril stir, ever 
so slightly. Her only concern now was: Would he strike 
just at the very second that he should? Would he 
strike a second too early, before it was necessary, and 
thus needlessly give himself away? Would he strike 
just a second too late, giving Shipton first the time to 
see and cry out? 

*^God, I^m stiff and sore,” Shipton was muttering. 

His foot struck something, and he reached down, 
thinking it was a bit of wood. But it was a stone, dirt- 
covered, and he kicked at it and came on. Now he was 
not two steps away. Again he stooped; as he stooped. 
Babe Deveril raised himself an inch or two higher. But 
now Shipton found a fragment of a pine log, half rot¬ 
ted and of little use as fuel. But in his present mood 
it served him; he picked it up and turned back to 
the dug-out. L 3 mette heard DeveriFs slowly expelled 
breath. 

Within there was a scraping of frying-pan on stove 
top. They saw a tin plate handed to Gallup on his 
bunk; Gallup began eating, noisy about it; eating like a 
dog. Shipton went in with his log. Taggart caught it 
from him, broke it up by striking it against the hard- 
packed dirt floor, and began stoking the stove. A fresh 
gush of sparks shot up from Joe’s chimney. Shipton 


\ 


I 


122 


TIMBER-WOLF 


was demanding to be fed . . . and for God’s sake give 
him a shot of coffee. 

Now’s our chance,” whispered Deveril. “None too 
good, but the best we’re going to have! Ready?” 

And her whisper came back to him, “Always ready!” 

“Now,” he whispered. “Off to the right; slow and 
quiet; if once we can snake across this open place and 
into the timber over there. ...” 

“And now, Senor Joe,” came Taggart’s voice, and 
they knew from the sound that Taggart, mouth full, was 
eating ravenously, “we got you!” 

“Sure you got me,” Joe rasped out at him, and still 
there remained defiance in little Mexicali Joe. “Fine! 
But what you do with me? You can’t eat me, an’ 
nobody ever yet put any bounty on my hide, an’ when 
you got me . . . you no got nothin’. An’, cahroney 
what I got I keep him 1” 

Taggart laughed at him in Taggart’s ugly style. 

“Talk big, little hombre, while you can! And now 
let me tell you something: To-night, right now, inside 
ten minutes, you’re going to tell me just exactly where 
you got that stuff you spilled out of your pocket last 
night. And in the morning, bright and early, you’re 
going to take me there! ” 

“I die firs’!” 

“You’ll be a long time dying! Think I’m fool enough 
to kill you . . . now? Know what the third degree is, 
Joe?” Taggart’s voice was terrible with its insinua¬ 
tion. “Me, when I give the third degree to any man, 
he spills his guts before I’m done with him! You’ll 
cough up everything you know and be damn glad after¬ 
ward to crawl off in the woods and die! That’s me, 
Joe.” 

Gallup, who must have found amusement in watching 
Mexicali Joe’s expression, laughed. After him Cliff 


TIMBER-WOLF 123 

Shipton laughed like an echo. Joe began cursing ner¬ 
vously. 

'' Ready ?'' whispered Lynette. Taggart’s threats hor¬ 
rified her and set her trembling. 

“No! . . . Don’t ycu see? Taggart will make him 
tell everytliing he knows, if he has to knock his teeth 
out one by one and break every bone in his body I And 
I’m going to hear! . . . You crawl ahead while there’s 
a chance; I can up and run for it after you if I have to.” 

She was silent. There was excitement in his utter¬ 
ance and another quality which sent a sudden chill to 
her heart. She stared at him through the dark as at a 
stranger; the gold fever was rampant in his veins, and 
she knew that he would lie here, never lifting hand or 
voice, while Taggart tortured his captive until Joe 
shrieked out his golden secret. 

Before Lynette could speak or move, Taggart’s voice 
once more cut harshly through the silence. 

“You wouldn’t know, Joe, unless you’d been sheriff 
as long as me, how many nice little ways there are of 
making a man hurry up about spitting up all he knows I ” 
Taggart was steadily cramming into his mouth the half- 
cooked dried beef stew, appearing to have entirely for¬ 
gotten his dislike for garlic. “Me, I’m a man of brains 
and what you call invention; I look around and see 
what I’ve got handy, and out of it I make what I need 1 
Now, look here. You see us boys eating hearty, and, if 
I know what that look means in a man’s eye, you got 
an appetite yourself? Well, you don’t get a scrap to 
eat nor a drink to drink until you open up.” 

Joe sought to laugh at him. Taggart, still stuffing, 
went on steadily: 

“Next, you see the stove with its hot lids? All right, 
pretty quick we hold you so the palms of your hands 
stick to the hot lids and the skin burns off. Oh, I know 


124 


TIMBER-WOLF 


that don’t hurt so much a man can’t stand it; sure not. 
But it does sort to set him to thinking things over in a 
new fashion! And then, what next?” 

“Make him eat salt,” put in Shipton with a snicker. 
“And don’t give him any water! Lots of salt does the 
trick, Jimmie.” 

Taggart, a man of no subtlety, snorted at him. 

“Maybe you can tell gold when you see it. Cliff,” he 
said briefly. “ But that’s all you do know. . . . Listen 
to me, Mexico. We got our rifles, ain’t we? We stand 
you with your back to the wall and dare you to move! 
Then we practise shooting; just to see how close we can 
come! We don’t hit you, us three being good shots. 
An3rway, we don’t hit you often, and then it’s only 
grazes! We make a game out of it; every man takes a 
shot and him that comes closest gets a dollar every 
time; him that draws blood puts up two dollars in the 
pot. And, pretty soon . . . What are you looking so 
sick for, Joe? Nobody ain’t hurt you yet!” 

Joe’s curses were suddenly faint, for Joe’s mouth and 
throat were dry and he had grown limp and dizzy and sick. 

“You see, I got you, Joe. Got you dead to rights!” 

“The brute!” whispered Lynette, her own flesh set 
twitching. “ The horrible brute! ” 

“Sh! Just listen!” 

“I don’t believe he’d actually do that! He is just 
frightening Joe—bluffing ...” 

“You the sheriff!” cried Joe, desperate. “You the 
one bigges’ robber in all these mount’!” 

“Call me robber, will you, you skunk!” 

Again they heard the sound of the blow, struck fiercely 
by Jim Taggart, who, as he let all men understand, was 
the last man to brook an insult. And they heard Joe’s 
slight body hurled back, so that he toppled and fell. 
And, thereafter, Taggart’s brutish laughter. To-night, 



TIMBER-WOLF 


125 


Jim Taggart, no matter how disgruntled he had been 
during so many hours, was at last enjoying himself. 
For to-night he was secure in his expectations. 

“You bleed awful easy, Joe/’ he jeered. “Ought to 
go get your teeth straightened up, too! Cup of coffee ? 
No? Then I’ll take one; gracias, mi amigo 

“I hope you burn in hell!” screamed Joe. 

“So?” And Taggart, swinging heavily, knocked him 
down again, and then reached out for the can that held 
sugar and sweetened his coffee. Shipton sniggered. 

“You’re a corker, Jim!” he declared. 

“Me,” acknowledged Taggart heavily, “I am what I 
am. But I never laid down for a Mex breed yet, and I 
ain’t going to.” 

Joe lay where he had fallen. His body was pain- 
wracked, for when Jim Taggart struck in wrath he 
struck mightily, being a mighty man physically, and 
hard. Joe’s swart skin had paled; his eyes started from 
his head; he feared, and not without reason, that a third 
blow like that would kill him. And he knew that Jim 
Taggart was no man to lie awake because he had killed 
another man. 

“I got thirs’,” said Joe thickly. He was sitting up, 
on the floor. “Give me cup water!” 

“What did I tell you, Joe?” Taggart grinned at him. 
“I got you. Got you right.” 

“I burnin’ up,” said Joe weakly. “Maybe you killin’ 
me. Give me drink water.” 

“I got you, Joe,” said Taggart speculatively. No 
mockery now; just a vast, deep satisfaction. “I half 
believe one good kick in the belly would settle you and 
you’d tell all you know. I got a hunch . . .” 

“Go slow, Jim.” This from the avaricious Young 
Gallup. “No sense killing him, seeing you haven’t found 
out a thing.” 


126 


TIMBER-WOLF 


^‘You’re right, Gal. Well, give him a drink, then; 
half a cup of water and let him think things over. . . . 
If he opens up then, 0. K. If he donT we’il find the 
way to open him up.” 

‘‘Let me go to the spring,” said Joe. By now he was 
on his feet. “I was jus' goin' for water when you come. 
The spring, she’s right there. You can see I don’t run 
away. . . .” 

“ Go scoop him up a can of water. Cliff,” said Taggart. 
“You sit tight, Joe. You don’t go out to-night imless 
we take you out to put you in a hole!” 

“ Now 1 ” whispered Deveril sharply. “ Now we’ve got 
to crawl for it!” 

But Cliff Ship ton demurred, saying surlily: 

“I’m tired out, and I’m sore and stiff and stove-up. 
Let him go without his water.” 

“We were crazy for waiting so long!” complained 
Deveril. “ Hurry 1 ” 

In the dugout Gallup was saying slowly, after his pon¬ 
derous fashion: 

“I’ll go get him his water. After that, like you say, 
Jim, he’ll op>en up—wide! Or, if he don’t, I’ll break his 
jaw-bone with my boot heel. . . . Where’s a can?” 

Already Babe Deveril had wormed his way out of the 
willows and began creeping about the edge of the tiny 
thicket that was farthest from Joe’s cabin. Lynette, 
feeling weak and sick, followed him like his own shadow. 
Thus they skirted the brushy fringe of the spring. 

Then Gallup, carrying his can, came out. Deveril 
dropped flat and lay motionless, his body hidden, at 
least to careless eyes, by the spring willows. Lynette 
dropped flat just behind him. She knew that again 
Deveril was ready to leap and strike, mercilessly hard, 
if Gallup came too near. It was almost an even chance 
whether Gallup would come their way or not. . . . 


TIMBER-WOLF 127 

Lynette, cold and tired and hungry and at last afraid, 
shivered. 

But, almost immediately, it became obvious to both 
of them that Gallup had been here before and knew his 
way about. He turned, as they had hoped that he 
would, to the right; they heard him reach the spring and 
dip his pan and fill it and turn back to the dugout, slop¬ 
ping water after him. They saw him step on the thresh¬ 
old; already Deveril was crawling cautiously again, and, 
after him, Lynette. 

It was like life in a nightmare. So tortuously slow. 
So great a need for quiet, and, like jeering, mocking 
voices, there came so many little sounds, loud in their 
ears—twigs snapping, leaves rustling, tiny stones set 
rolling. At first, what with the dark and her sole 
thought to be gone, Lynette failed to understand just 
how Deveril was directing his course. When she did 
grasp, she wondered at him. Instead of hurrying straight 
across the clearing toward the haven of the timber-line, 
he was drawing nearer and nearer the west end of the 
dugout! Now she dared not whisper to him; she could 
not come up with him to catch warningly at his boot. 
So she followed, striving with all her caution to overtake 
him. And before she could do so, she glimpsed his pur¬ 
pose. 

True to type, Joe’s dugout had but the one door, and 
the rear of the building was a sort of timbered hole in 
the mountainside. Deveril planned that if he could 
gain the back of the dugout he could hear what was 
going on and run little danger of being detected; further, 
that in that direction, did he elect to up and run for 
cover, he and Lynette would have as good a chance as 
any to get away in the rim of the forest. If they moved 
with all possible silence, and especially if Taggart and 
the others within kept up their noise-making, snapping 


128 


TIMBER-WOLF 


and snarling and knocking things about, it was more 
than an even break that neither Taggart nor any of his 
companions would come to suspect that they were being 
spied upon; and when did Babe Deveril ever ask more 
than the even break? Then . . . there remained one 
other consideration, one of exceedingly great importance 
in Deveril’s estimation, of which as yet Lynette had no 
inkling: while in hiding down by the spring Deveril had 
made a discovery, or believed that he had, and no op¬ 
portunity had been given him either to speak of it or 
yet to investigate. 

Clearly now was the moment when Taggart and Gal¬ 
lup and the complaining Cliff Shipton concentrated every 
thought upon their captive; Joe showed signs of weak¬ 
ening, and every man of them held that if only Joe could 
be led to ^^open up” they would all be made rich at his 
expense. 

Meanwhile Gallup had given Joe his water; Joe had 
drunk rapidly, gulping noisily. Taggart and Gallup and 
Shipton were eying him eagerly. Joe had taken a deep 
breath; again he started to drink. Taggart struck the 
can away from his mouth, commanding: ^^No more. 
You’ve got to talk first; fast and straight and no lies! 
Understand ? ” 

^‘How you goin’ tell if I lie?” muttered Joe, something 
of his stubbornness restored. 

Right now you tell us where the gold is. In the 
morning you take us to the place. And if you make a 
little mistake and don’t take us straight, I’ll make you 
sorry you were ever born!” 

Deveril and Lynette passed within a few yards of the 
dugout’s nearest front corner; they groped onward up 
the steep slope; they came in a brief detour to the rear, 
where the rude timbers supporting the shed roof were 
at this end embedded in the earth. Here they stopped 


TIMBER-WOLF 


129 


and lay flat and listened. And they heard Joe mum¬ 
bling: ‘‘If I tell, I tell true. But I don’t think I tell. 
You kick me out; you steal everything; you get rich an’ 
me—I die poor. Maybe better I die and fool you!” 

“Listen, Joe.” Gallup speaking—Gallup, who feared 
that Joe might be fool enough to die with locked lips 
rather than be robbed of his new fortune; Gallup, a 
man who could understand another man doing anything, 
standing any torture, rather than lose the one golden 
thing in life. “We’ll make you a fair proposition, us 
three men. You found the gold; all right, you got a 
right to a share. You can’t hog it anyhow; other men 
will come rushing in as soon as you drop a pick in it; 
they’ll stake claims all around you; more’n likely they’ll 
cop off the very cream of it, and you’ll have just a pocket 
that will peter out on you. We brought Cliff along; he 
knows pockets and veins and all kind of gold signs, from 
stock to barrel. Now, you show sense; you take us 
along; we form a company, just us four. And you get 
one-fourth the rake-off. And we got the money to de¬ 
velop it; to make a big thing out of it. You ain’t got 
the money and you ain’t got the business brains, and 
you’d lose on it sooner or later, anyhow.” 

Silence. A long silence while three men watched him 
and while Deveril and Lynette listened. A long silence 
during which all that strangely blended craft which 
flowed into Mexicali Joe’s veins from a mixture of Latin 
and Indian ancestry was hard at work . . . though this 
no one could guess now, so immobile was Joe’s face, so 
guarded his tone when he spoke. 

“That sound line, Gallup! But how I know you 
don’t cheat me? For why you don’t hit me in the 
head with a pick when I tell? For why you don’t take 
all . . . everything?” 

“I’m telling you why!” cried Gallup. “Look here. 


130 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Suppose we did that and croaked you and dug a hole 
and stuck you in. All right. Next thing we pop up 
with a new gold-mine! And there’ll be men to say: 
‘That ore looks like the ore Mexicali Joe showed 
that night down to Gallup’s house 1 ’ And they’ll say: 
‘Where’s Joe?’ And they’ll begin making trouble, all 
kinds; they’ll want to run us out. They’ll have us up 
for killing you. There’ll be a lot of talk, and always the 
chance, as long’s we live, they might pin something on 
us. And what would we make by that sort of work? 
Only a one-quarter interest in your diggings / Why, man, 
it ain’t worth it! We got too much sense to kill any 
man for the sake of a little ante like that. Sure, Joe; 
dead on the level, if you play square with us, we play 
square with you.” 

Silence again. A longer silence than before. Then, 
while Joe must have appeared to hesitate, Taggart 
said abruptly: 

“And if you don’t take our proposition and talk fast 
and straight, I’m going to make you talk! And then 
you don’t get no thanks but a kick and a get-the-hell- 
out! That’s my way, you little greaser.” 

“Give him time, Jim,” pleaded Gallup. 

“All right!” cried Joe, seeming eager now. “I take 
the chance! You boys just tell me ‘ So help me God, 
I play square!’ and I take the chance!” 

“So help me God!” cried Young Gallup, first of all. 
“I play square with you, Joe!” 

And after him, while Joe waited, both Taggart and 
Cliff Ship ton said, with a semblance of deep gravity: 
“So help me God.” 

“We pardners now? Us four?” demanded Joe. And 
when he had had his three immediate, emphatic as¬ 
surances—Deveril misjudged him a fool—^Joe began, 
speaking rapidly: Bueno! Now we talk. An’ in the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


131 

mornin^ we start an’ to-morrow I show you! I got 
the bigges’ mine you can’t beat in all New Mexico an’ 
Arizona an’ Nevada, too! For why I care take on 
three pardners ? I tell you, we got the money to devil- 
him-up, we all rich like hell! . . .” 

“Get going, Joe,” growled Taggart. ''Where? Down 
Light Ladies’ Canon, and not more’n three or four miles 
from Big Pine?” 

Joe cackled his derision at Taggart’s guess. 

"Me, I fool ever’body!” he said gleefully. "Me, I’m 
damn smart man, Senor Taggart I Nowhere near Light 
Ladies’. The other way. We go all day to-morrow, 
way back up in the mountains. One long, hard day, 
walkin’. Maybe day an’ a half. You know where 
Buck Valley? All right; you know, on other side. Big 
Bear Creek? An’ then you know, little bit more far, 
two-t’ree mile. Grub Stake Canon? You know . . .” 

"By the living Lord,” broke in Taggart. "That’s 
right square in Bruce Standing’s country 1” 

Again Joe cackled. 

"You know whole lot; you don’t know ever’thing I 
Timber-Wolf’s lands run like this.” (One could imagine 
a grimy forefinger set in a dirty palm.) "His line, here. 
My mine, she’s just the other side. Nobody’s land; 
gover’ment land.” He chuckled. "An’ ol’ big Timber- 
Wolf, he goin’ cry . . . hoo-hoo-hoo! . . . when he find 
out we got gold not mile an’ half from his line! ” 

Deveril was twitching at Lynette’s sleeve. He began 
edging away. When she came up with him he was 
standing; she rose and, together they hurried across the 
clearing, and in a few moments were in the deep dark 
of the embracing forest land. 

"I know that country like a map!” he told her ex¬ 
citedly. "We were already headed that way, and on we 


132 


TIMBER-WOLF 


go! Why, it was right up by Big Bear Creek that I 
spent a night with Bruce Standing six years ago and he 
robbed me of my roll 1 . . . They start in the morning; 
we start to-night! We’ll be there when they come; 
there are ten thousand places to hide out; we’ll have a 
place on a ridge where we can watch them. And they’ll 
never have the vaguest idea that any one, you and I 
least of all, is ahead of them. Somehow, Lynette Brooke, 
our luck is with us and this whole game is going to play 
into our hands.” 

“If a little food would only play into them! . . . 
The smell of that coffee . . . the meat cooking . . 

“Wait! Right here, by this tree. Don’t move a 
step, no matter what happens. I’ll be back with you 
in two shakes.” 

She was almost too tired and faint from hunger to 
wonder at him. She saw him go, and then she sank 
down, her back to the big yellow pine. He went as 
straight as a string toward the spring; she saw him 
walking swiftly, though with footfalls so guarded that 
she could not hear him when he had gone ten steps. 
She knew that he was recklessly counting upon a deal 
of quick chatter in the dugout, secure in his own bra¬ 
vado that no man of the four there would at this elec¬ 
trically charged moment have thought of anything but 
gold. He disappeared in the dark; he was gone so long 
that she jumped up and stood staring in all directions; 
but at last he was back at her side, chuckling, and then 
she knew he had not been away ten minutes. 

“I struck it with my elbow, while we were hiding 
down there,” he told her triumphantly. “Mexicali Joe’s 
real cache!” 

He had a square tin biscuit-box in his hands. She 
put her hand in quickly. The box, which had been 



TIMBER-WOLF 


133 

half buried in the cool earth by the spring, was half full 
of tins and small packages. 

Fatigue fled out of them. Hurriedly they went up 
over the ridge, deeper and deeper into the forest land. 
And when, in half an hour, they came down into the 
dark, tree-walled bed of another ravine, they made 
them their small fire and tmnbled out into its light their 
newly acquired treasure-trove—sardines, beans, tinned 
milk . . . yes, coffee! 


CHAPTER X 


the sheriff, Jim Taggart, is not dead, after all. 
And you . . 

Deveril looked across their tiny fire at her, a strange 
expression in his eyes, and said quietly: 

“No; he is not dead. All along I judged that un¬ 
likely. Though I slung your gun at him hard enough, 
if it hit a lucky spot. It’s hard to kill a man, you 
know. . . . And, to finish your thought, I am not run¬ 
ning wild with a hangman’s noose hanging about my 
neck! And you . . 

He took a certain devilish glee in concluding with an 
echo of her own words. And with the added insinuation 
poured into them from his own. He saw her jerk her 
head up defiantly. 

“I told you . . .” 

Again she broke off. He made no remark, but sat 
looking at her intently. They had eaten and drunk 
their fill; there remained to them a goodly stock of pro¬ 
visions; Deveril was smoking his cigarette. 

“What now?” demanded Lynette, as one tired of a 
subject and impatient to look forward. 

He shrugged. 

“All troubles have slipped off my shoulders. The 
worst they could do to me, if they could lay me by the 
heels, would be to charge me with assault and battery! 
And we’re in a neck of the woods where men laugh at a 
charge like that, and ask the assaulted one why the 
devil he didn’t hit back! What now? For you I’d 
advise keeping right on travelling. For if Bruce Stand- 

134 


TIMBER-WOLF 


135 


ing is dead it^s up to you to keep on the move! As 
for me, I never met up with a sweeter travelling com¬ 
panion, nor yet with a nervier, nor yet, by God, with a 
lovelier 1 Say the word, Lynette Brooke, and we strike 
on together, over the ridge and deeper into the wilderness, 
headed for the land beyond Buck Valley, beyond Big 
Bear Creek. For the wild lands beyond the last holdings 
of the late Timber-Wolf, to be on the ground when 
Mexicali Joe leads Taggart and Gallup and Shipton to 
his gold!” 

She understood how Babe Deveril, as any man should 
be, was relieved at knowing that the man he had stricken 
down was not dead; that he, himself, was not hunted as 
a murderer. And yet she was vaguely distressed and 
uneasy. She felt a change in him, and in his attitude 
toward her. . . . When he awaited her reply, she 
made none. Again fatigue swept over her, and with 
it a new stirring of uneasiness. . . . 

There was a drop of coffee left; she leaned forward 
and took it, thinking: ^^He had his tobacco, and it has 
bolstered up his nerves.’’ She drank and then sat back, 
leaning against a tree, her face hidden from him, while 
she searched his face in the dim light, searched it with 
a stubborn desire to read the most hidden thought in 
his brain. 

am tired,” she said after a long while. He could 
make nothing of her voice, low and impersonal, and with 
no inflection to give it expression beyond the brief mean¬ 
ings of the words themselves. “Very tired. Yet neces¬ 
sity drives. And it is not safe here, so near them. I 
can go on for another hour, perhaps two or three hours. 
That will mean . . . how far? Four or five miles; may¬ 
be six, seven?” 

Not only for one hour, not alone for just two or three 
hours did they push on. But for half of that silent. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


136 

starry night. A score of times Babe Deveril said to 
her: “WeVe done our stunt; if any girl on earth ever 
earned rest, youVe done it.” But always there was 
that driving force and that allure, and another ridge 
just ahead, and her answer: “Another mile. ... I can 
do it.” 

Deveril, with a lighted match cupped in his hand, 
looked at his watch. 

“It’s long after midnight; nearly one o’clock.” 

They found a sheltered spot among the tall pines; 
above them the keen edge of an up-thrust ridge; just be¬ 
low a thick-grown clump of underbrush; underfoot dry 
needles, fallen and drifted from the pines. Again he 
was all courtesy and kindliness toward her, seeing her 
hard pressed, judging her, despite her mask of hardi¬ 
hood, near collapse. So he cut pine boughs with his 
knife and broke them with his hands, and of them piled 
her a couch. She thanked him gently; impulsively she 
gave him her hand . . . though, as his caught it eagerly, 
she jerked it away quickly. . . . He watched her lie 
down, snuggling her cheek against the curve of her arm. 
Near by he lay down on his back, his two hands under 
his head, his eyes on the stars. A curious smile twitched 
at his lips. 

And then, just as they were dropping off to sleep, 
they heard far off a long-drawn, howling cry piercing 
through the great hush. Lynette started up, her blood 
quickening; as she had heard Bruce Standing’s warning 
call that first time, so now did she think to hear it again. 
Deveril leaped to his feet, no less startled. A moment 
later he called softly to her, and it seemed to Lynette 
that he forced a tone of lightness which did not ring 
true: 

“A timber wolf . . . but one that runs on four legs! 
It won’t come near.” Then, as she made no answer 


TIMBER-WOLF 


137 

and he could not see her face, he asked sharply: ^^What 
did you think it was?” 

She shivered and lay back. 

“I didn’t know.” 

And to herself she whispered: 

“And I don’t know now!” 

Here among the uplands it was a night of piercing 
cold. The nearer the dawn drew on, the icier grew the 
fingers of the wind which swept the ridges and probed 
into the canons. For a little while both Lynette and 
Deveril slept the heavy sleep of exhaustion. But, after 
the first couple of hours, neither slept beyond brief, 
uncomfortable dozes. They shivered and woke and 
stirred; they found a growing torture in the rude couches 
they slept upon, in the hard ground and stones, which 
seemed always thrusting up in new places. Long be¬ 
fore the night had begun to thin to the first of day¬ 
break’s hint, Lynette was sitting, her back to a tree, 
torn between the two impossibilities, that of remaining 
awake, that of remaining asleep. Deveril got up and 
began stamping about, trying to get warm and drive 
the cramp and soreness out of his muscles. 

“A few more days and nights like this,” he grumbled, 
“would be enough to kill a pair of Esquimos! We’ve 
got to find us some sort of half-way decent shelter for 
another night, and we’ve got to arrange to take a holi¬ 
day and rest up.” 

It was all that she could do to keep her teeth from 
chattering by shutting them hard together; her only 
answer was a shivery sigh. She could scarcely make 
him out, where he trod back and forth, the darkness 
held so thick. She began to think so longingly of a fire 
that in comparison with its cheer and warmth she felt 
that possible discovery by Taggart would be a small 
misfortune. She could almost welcome being put under 


TIMBER-WOLF 


138 

arrest; taken back to Big Pine and jail; given a bed 
and covers and one long sleep. 

Awake queried Deveril. 

She nodded, as though he could see her nod through 
the dark. Then, with an effort, she said an uncertain: 
‘‘Y-e-s.’’ 

‘Til tell you,” he said presently, coming close to 
her and looking down upon the blot in the darkness 
which her huddled figure made at the base of the pine. 
“Taggart will be on his way soon; hell hardly wait for 
day. Hell go the straightest, quickest way to the Big 
Bear country. That means hell steer on straight into 
Buck Valley. If you and I went that way, we’d have 
him and his crowd at our heels all day, and never know 
how close they were; and I, for one, am damned sick of 
that feeling that somebody’s creeping up on us all the 
time! So we swerve out from the direct way as soon as 
we start; we curve off to the north for a couple of miles; 
then we make a bend around toward the upper end of 
what I fancy must be the Grub Stake Canon Joe is 
headed for. That way we’ll always have two or three 
miles between our trail and theirs; at times we’ll be five 
or six miles off to the side. That means, of course, that 
they’re pretty sure to get to Joe’s diggings ahead of us; 
not over half a day at that. For we’re well ahead of 
them now. And, in any case, you can bet the last sar¬ 
dine we’ve got that they’ll be a day or two just poking 
around, prospecting and trying to make sure of what 
they’ve grabbed off. ... Agreed, pardner ? ” 

“Yes. I could even start now, just to get those few 
miles between our trail and theirs. Then, when the sun 
was up and it was warm, we could have a rest and an 
hour’s sleep.” 

So, walking slowly, painfully, carrying what was left 
of their small stock of provisions, they started on in the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


139 


dark. Up a ridge they went and into the thinning edge 
of the coming dawn; they picked their way among trees 
and rocks; little by little they were able to see in more 
detail what lay about them. Along the ridge they 
tramped northward. They were warmer now that they 
walked; or, rather, they were some degrees less cold. 
Gradually their paces grew swifter, as some of the stiff¬ 
ness went out of their bodies; gradually the shadows 
thinned; the stars paled, the east asserted itself above 
the other points of the compass, softly tinted. The 
sleeping world began to awake all about them; birds 
stirred with the first drowsy twitterings. The pallid 
eastern tints grew brighter; as from a wine-cup, life was 
spilled again upon the mountain tops. A bird began a 
clear-noted, joyous singing; all of a sudden the morning 
breeze seemed sweeter and softer; there came a bril¬ 
liant, flaming glory in the sky which drew their eyes; 
all life forces which had been at ebb began to flow 
strongly once more; the sun thrust a gleaming golden 
edge up into the upper world, rolling majestically from 
the under world. Deveril looked into her eyes and 
laughed softly; her eyes smiled back into his. . . . She 
felt as though she had had a bad dream, but was 
awake now; as though last night her nerves had tricked 
her into wrongly judging her companion. Doubtings al¬ 
ways flock in the night; joy is never more joyous than 
when breaking forth with the new day. 

“It isn’t so bad, after all,” said Deveril. “Now, if 
we only had a pack-mule and a roll of blankets and a 
bit of canvas. . . . What more would you ask, Lynette 
Brooke, for a lark and a holiday to remember pleasantly 
when we grew to be doddering old folks?” 

“As long as you are wishing,” returned Lynette 
lightly, “why not place an order with the King of Ifs 
for a gun and some fishing-tackle and a frying-pan and 


140 


TIMBER-WOLF 


some more coffee? And a couple of hats; an outing 
suit for me.’’ She looked down at her suit; it was torn 
in numerous places; it was gummed and sticky here and 
there with the resin from pines; it caught upon every 
bush. ^‘Then, you know, a needle and some thread; a 
dozen fresh eggs, bread, and butter ...” 

“Too much soft living has spoiled you!” he laughed. 

“If so, I am in ideal training to get unspoiled in short 
order!” she laughed back. 

And for all of this was the rising sun and the new, 
bright day responsible; for the ancient way of youth 
playing up to youth. 

What was happening within both of them was a great 
nervous relaxation. They knew where Taggart and 
Gallup were, or at least were confident that there was 
no immediate danger of Taggart and Gallup overhauling 
them; they knew where Mexicali Joe was and where he 
was going. For the moment they were freed from that 
crushing sense of uncertainty welded to menace which 
had borne down upon them ever since they fled from 
Big Pine. And consequently joy of life sprang up as 
a spring leaps the instant that the weight is plucked 
from it. 

“It’s our lucky day!” said Deveril. 

For the sun was scarcely up when a plump young 
rabbit hopped square into their path, and Deveril, with 
a lucky throw, killed it with a rock. And just as they 
were speaking of thirst, they came to a tiny trickle of 
water among the rocks; and while Lynette was boiling 
coffee over a tiny blaze, Deveril was preparing grilled 
cottontail for breakfast. Savory odors floating out 
through the woodlands. Lynette was singing softly: 

Merry it is in the good Greenwood 

They ate and rested and the sun warmed them. For 


TIMBER-WOLF 


141 

a full two hours they scarcely stirred. Then they drank 
again; Lynette bathed her hands and face and arms; 
she set her hair in order, refashioning the two thick 
braids. She shut one eye and then the other, striving 
to make certain that there was not a black smudge 
somewhere upon her nose. They were starting on when 
Deveril said soberly: 

Shall I save the rabbit skin?” 

“Why?” she asked innocently. 

\ twinkle came into his eyes. 

“A few more days of this sort of life, and My Lady 
Linnet is going to require a new gown! Perhaps rabbit 
furs, if hunting is good, will do it!” 

She laughed at him, and her eyes were daring as she 
sang, improvising as to melody: 

“And for vest of pall, thy fingers small, 

That wont on harp to stray, 

A cloak must sheer from the slaughtered deer, 

To keep the cold away! ” 

Lynette I” 

A flash from her gay mood had set his eyes on fire. 
He sprang up and came toward her, his two hands out. 
But as a black cloud can run over the face of the young 
moon, so did a sudden change of mood wipe the tempt¬ 
ing look out of her eyes and darken them. Her spirit 
had peeped forth at him, merry-making; as quick as 
bird-flight it was gone, and she stepped back and looked 
at him steadily, cool now and aloof and dampening to 
a man’s ardent nonsense. 

“You have a way of saying something. Babe Deveril,” 
she told him coolly, “which appeals to me. In your 
own upstanding words: ‘Let’s go!’” 

He laughed back at her lightly, hiding under a light 
cloak his own chagrin. At that moment he had wanted 
her in his arms; had wanted that as he wanted neither 


142 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Mexicali Joe’s gold nor any other coldly glittering thing. 
Now he felt himself growing angry with her. . . . 

“Right. You’ve said it. Let’s go.” 

He made short work of catching up the few articles 
they were to carry with them and of stamping into dead 
coals the few remaining glowing embers of their fire. 
Then, striding ahead, he led the way. And for a mat¬ 
ter of a mile or more she was hard beset to keep up 
with him. 

The day was filled with happenings to divert their 
thoughts from any one channel. They startled, in a 
tiny meadow, three deer, which shot away through a 
tangle of brush, leaping, plunging, shooting forward and 
down a slope like great, gleaming, graceful arrows. “A 
man could live like a king here, with a rifle,” said Dev- 
eril longingly. They saw a tall, thin wisp of smoke an 
hour before noon; it stood against the sky to the south¬ 
west of them, at a distance of perhaps two miles. ^‘Tag¬ 
gart’s noonday camp,” they decided, deciding further 
that Taggart must have insisted on an early start, and 
therefore had found his stomach demanding lunch well 
before midday. Later, some two or three hours after 
twelve, they heard the long, reverberating crack and 
rumble and echo of a rifle-shot. “Taggart’s crowd, kill¬ 
ing a deer or bear or rabbit,” they imagined. And all 
along they were contented, making what time they 
could through the open spaces, over the ridges, down 
through tiny green valleys and up long, dreary slopes, 
resting frequently, never hastening beyond their powers, 
secure in knowing that the Taggart trail and the Lyn- 
ette-Deveril trail, though paralleling, would have no 
common point of contact before both trails ran into the 
country in the vicinity of the Big Bear Creek, the rim 
of the Timber-Wolf country. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


143 


‘‘The whole thing/’ exulted Babe Deveril, “lies in 
the fact that we know where they are and they haven’t 
the least idea where we are! We know where they are 
going, and they haven’t a guess which way we are steer¬ 
ing . . 

“Do you know,” said Lynette thoughtfully, “I don’t 
believe that Mexicali Joe intends for a minute to lead 
them to his gold!” 

Deveril looked at her in astonishment. 

“You don’t! Why, couldn’t you see that Taggart 
put the fear of the Lord into him? That Gallup, slick 
as wet soap, tricked him? That . . 

She broke in impatiently, saying: 

“Yet Joe . . . He seemed to me to give in to them 
in something too much of a hurry ... as though he 
had his own wits about him, his own last card in the 
hole, as dad used to say. I wonder . . .” 

He stared at her, puzzled. 

“When you feel things,” he muttered, none too pleas¬ 
antly, “you get me guessing. I don’t know yet how 
you came to know that the Taggart bunch was at our 
heels yesterday. But you did know; and you were 
right. As to this other hunch of yours . . 

“You’ll see,” said Lynette serenely. “Joe isn’t the 
biggest fool in that crowd of four. You wait and 
see.” 

“You’ll give me the creeps yet,” said Deveril. 

They both laughed and went on—through brushy 
tangles; over rocky ridges; through spacious forests; 
across soft, springy meadows; up slope, down slope; on 
and on and endlessly on. Once they frightened a young 
bear that was tearing away as if its life depended upon 
it upon an old stump; the bear snorted and went lum¬ 
bering away, as Deveril said, like a young freight-train 
gone mad; Lynette, as she admitted afterward, was 


144 


TIMBER-WOLF 


twice as frightened, but did not run, herself, because the 
bear ran first and because she couldn’t get the hang of 
her feet as quickly as he could! They came upon sev¬ 
eral bands of mountain-quail, which shot away, buzzing 
like overgrown bees; Deveril hurled stones and curses 
at many a scampering rabbit; once she and once he 
caught a glimpse of that dark gleam, come and gone 
in a flash, which might have been coyote or timber- 
wolf. . . . They did not speak of Bruce Standing. 
But they wondered, both of them. . . . 

Toward four o’clock in the afternoon they heard for 
the second time the crack of a rifle-shot. Farther to 
the south of them this time; a hint farther eastward; 
fainter than when first heard. Taggart, they held in 
full confidence, was following the trail which they had 
mapped for him; he was going on steadily; he was forg¬ 
ing ahead of them. And yet they were content that 
this was so. They rested more often; they relaxed more 
and more. 

And before the orief reverberations of a distant rifle¬ 
shot had done echoing through the gorges, they came to 
a full stop and determined to make camp. Not for a 
second, all day long, had Deveril swerved from his de¬ 
termination to ^‘dig in in comfort for the night.” They 
were, as both were willing to admit, “done in.” 

Deveril employed his pocket-knife, long ago dulled, 
and now whetted after a fashion upon a rough stone, to 
whack off small pine and willow and the more leafy of 
sage branches. He made of them a goodly heap. Then 
he gathered dead limbs, fallen from the parent trees, 
making his second pile. All the while Lynette kept a 
small dry-wood and pine-cone fire going hotly; little 
smoke, little swirl of sparks to rise above the grove in 
which they were encamping; plenty of heat for body 
warmth and for cooking. She was preoccupied, moving 


TIMBER-WOLF 


145 


about listlessly. So this was Bruce Standing’s coun¬ 
try ? She looked about her with an ever-deepening in¬ 
terest; this was a fitting land for such a man. Bigness 
and dominance and a certain vital freshness struck al¬ 
together the key-note here—and suggested Timber- 

Wolf. If he were not dead after all- Well, then, he 

would be somewhere near now for like a wounded ani¬ 
mal, he would have returned to his solitudes. 

Deveril found near by a level space under the pines. 
Here he sought out a scraggly tree which expressed an 
earth-loving soul in low-drooped branches. Against a 
low arm which ran out horizontally from the trunk he be¬ 
gan placing his longer dead limbs, the butts in the ground, 
sloping, the effect soon that of a tent. Against these a 
high-piled wall of leafy branches. He stood back, judg¬ 
ing from which direction the wind would come. He piled 
more branches. Into his nostrils, filled with the resi¬ 
nous incense of broken pine twigs, floated the tempting 
aromas which spread out in all directions from Lynette’s 
cooking. He cocked his eye at the slanting sun; it was 
still early. He yielded to the insistent invitation, and 
came down into the little cup of a meadow to her, and 
she watched him coming: a picturesque figure in the 
forest land, his black hair rumpled, his slender figure 
swinging on, his sleeves rolled back, his eyes full of the 
flicker of his lively spirit. 

When Deveril was hard pressed along the trail, worn 
out and on the alert for oncoming danger from any quar¬ 
ter, he was impersonal; a mere ally on whom she could 
depend. At moments like this one, when he was rested 
and relaxed, and grasped in his eager hands a bit of the 
swift life flowing by, he became different. A man now 
—a young man—one with quick lights in his eyes and 
a lilting eagerness in his voice. 

^Ht would be great sport,” he said, “all life long . . . 




146 


TIMBER-WOLF 


to come home to you and find you waiting . . . with a 
smile and a wee cup o’ tea! And . . 

He was half serious, half laughing; she made a hasty 
light rejoinder, and invited him to a hot supper wait¬ 
ing him. 

They made a merry, frivolously light meal of it. 
There was plenty to eat; water near by; there was coffee; 
above them the infinity of blue, darkening skies, about 
them the peace and silence of the solitudes. And within 
their souls security, if only for the swiftly passing mo¬ 
ment. They chose to be gay; they laughed often; 
Deveril asked her where she had learned to quote Scott 
and she asked him, in obvious retort, if he thought that 
she had never been to school! He sang for her, low¬ 
voiced and musically, a Spanish love-song; she made 
high pretense at missing the significance of the impas¬ 
sioned southern words. He, having finished eating and 
having nearly finished his cigarette, lying back upon 
the thick-padded pine-needles, jerked himself up, of a 
mood for free translation; she, being quick of intuition, 
forestalled him, crying out: While I clean up our can 
dishes, if you will finish making camp ...” 

He laughed at her, but got up and went back, whis¬ 
tling his love-song refrain to his house-building. She, 
busied over her own labors, found time more than once 
to glance at him through the trees . . . wondering 
about him, trying to probe her own instinctive distrust 
of one who had all along befriended her. 

When she joined him a few minutes later, coming up 
the slope slowly, she looked tired, he thought, and list¬ 
less. She sat down and watched him finishing his la¬ 
bors; all of her spontaneous gaiety had fled; she was 
silent and did not smile and appeared preoccupied. She 
sighed two or three times, unconsciously, but her sighs 
did not escape him. Always he had held her sex to be 


TIMBER-WOLF 


147 


an utterly baffling, though none the less an equally fas¬ 
cinating one. Now he would have given more than a 
little for a clew to her thoughts ... or dreamings . . . 
or vague preoccupation. . . . 

‘^My lady’s bower!” he said lightly. ‘^And what 
does my lady have to say of it?” 

A truly bowery little shelter it was, on leaning poles 
in an inverted V, with leafy boughs making thick walls, 
through which only slender sun-rays slipped in a golden 
dust; within a high-heaped pile of fragrant boughs, with 
a heap of smaller green twigs and resinous pine-tips 
for her couch. 

‘‘You are so good to me, Babe Deveril,” was her grave 
answer. 

And not altogether did her answer please him, for a 
quick hint of frown touched his eyes, though he ban¬ 
ished it almost before she was sure of it. Those words 
of hers, though they thanked him, most of all reminded 
him of his goodness and gentleness with her, and thus 
went farther and assured him that she still counted upon 
his goodness and gentleness. 

“I am afraid. Babe Deveril,” she added quickly, 
though still her eyes were grave and her lips unsmiling, 
“that I am pretty well tired out ... all sort of let¬ 
down like, as an old miner I once knew used to say I 
It’s going to be sundown in a few minutes; can’t we 
treat ourselves to the luxury of a good blazing camp¬ 
fire, and sit by it, and get good and warm and rested?” 

Had she spoken her true thought she would have 
cried out instead: 

“What troubles me. Babe Deveril, is that I am half 
afraid of you. And, all of a sudden, of the wilderness. 
And of life and of all the mysteries of the unknown! 
I am as near screaming from sheer nervousness at this 
instant as I ever was in my life.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


148 

But Deveril, who could glean of her emotions only 
what she allowed to lie among her spoken words, cried 
heartily: 

‘^You just bet your sweet life we’ll have a crackling, 
roaring fire. Taggart and his crowd are half a dozen 
miles away right now and still going; our fire down in 
that hollow will never cast a gleam over the big ridge 
yonder and the other ridges which lie in between him 
and us. Come ahead, my dear; here’s for a real bon¬ 
fire.” 

That ‘'my dear” escaped him; but she did not ap¬ 
pear to have noted it. She rose and followed him back 
to their dying fire. He began piling on dead branches; 
they caught and crackled and shot showering sparks 
aloft. He brought more fuel, laying it close by. Al¬ 
ready the blaze had driven her back; she sat down by 
a pine, her knees in her hands, her head tipped forward 
so that her face was shadowed, her two curly braids 
over her shoulders. 

Deveril lay near her, his hand palming his chin. 

“Tell me, pretty maiden,” he said lightly, “how far 
to the nearest barber shop?” 

“And tell me,” she returned, looking at her fingers, “if 
in that same shop they have a manicurist?” 

Having glanced at her hands, she sighed, and then 
began working with her hair; there was one thing which 
must not be utterly neglected. She knew that if once 
it became snarled, she had small hope of saving it; no 
comb, no brush, no scissors to snip off a troublesome 
lock; only the inevitable result of such an utter snarl 
that she, too, in a week of this sort of thing, must needs 
seek a barber who understood bobbing a maid’s hair. 
And with hair such as Lynette’s, glorious, bronzy, with 
all the brighter glowing colors of the sunlight snared in 
it, any true girl should shudder at the barber’s scissors. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


149 


All without warning a great booming voice crashed 
into their ears, shattering the silence, as Bruce Standing 
bore down upon them from the ridge, shouting: 

‘‘So, now IVe got you! Got both of you! Got you 
where I want you, by the living God!’’ 


/ 


CHAPTER XI 


The one first thought, bursting into full form and 
expression in Lynette’s brain, with the suddenness, and 
the shock of an explosion, was: ‘‘He is aliveAnd in 
Babe Deverirs mind the thought: “Bruce Standing at 
last! . . . And drunk with rage! 

And Bruce Standing’s one thought, as both understood 
somewhat as they leaped to their feet: 

“Into my hands, of all my enemies are those two 
whom I hate most delivered!” For it had been almost 
like a religion with him, his certainty that he would 
come up with them—the girl who had laughed and shot 
him; the man who had stolen her away, cheating his 
vengeance. 

Babe Deveril, on the alert in the first flash of com¬ 
prehension, stooped, groping among the shadows for his 
club, his only weapon. He saw the sun glinting upon 
Bruce Standing’s rifle barrel. That club of his . . . 
where was it? Dropped somewhere; perhaps while he 
was building a leafy bower for a pretty lady; forgotten 
in a gush of other thoughts ... he couldn’t find it. 
He stood straight again; his hands, clinched and lifted, 
imitated clubs. The first weapons of the first men. . . . 

Lynette heard them shouting at each other, two men 
who hated each other, two men seeing red as they looked 
through the spectacles which always heady hatred 
wears. Men, both of them; masculinity asserting itself 
triumphantly, belligerently; manhood rampant and, on 
the spur of the moment, as warlike as two young bulls 
contending for a herd. . . . She heard them cursing 
each other; heard such plain-spoken Anglo-Saxon epithets 

150 


TIMBER-WOLF 


151 

hurled back and forth as at any other time would have 
set her ears burning. Just now the epithets meant less 
than nothing to her; they were but windy words, and 
a word was less, far less, than a stout club in a man’s 
hand or a stone to hurl. She was of a mind to run 
while yet she could; but that was only the first natural 
reaction, lost and forgotten instantly. She stood with¬ 
out moving, watching them. An odd thing, she thought 
afterward, wondering, that that which at the moment 
made the strongest, longest-lasting impression upon her 
was the picture which Timber-Wolf, himself, created as, 
with the low sun at his back, he came rushing down 
upon them. Just now the mountain slope had consti¬ 
tuted but a quiet landscape in softening tones, like a 
painting in pastels, with only the sun dropping down 
into the pine fringe to constitute a- brighter focal point; 
and now, all of a sudden, it was as though the master 
artist, with impulsive inspiration, had slung with sweep¬ 
ing brush this new element into the picture—that of 
a great blond giant of a man, young and vigorous, and 
at this critical hour consumed with hatred and anger 
and triumphant glee. He was always one to punish his 
own enemies, was Bruce Standing. And now one felt 
that he carried vengeance in both big, hard, relent¬ 
less hands. 

On he came, almost at a run, so eager was he. Came 
so close before he stopped that Lynette saw the flash of 
his blue eyes—eyes which, when she had seen them first 
in Big Pine had been laughing and innocent —which now 
were the eyes of a blue-eyed devil. He was laughing; 
it was a devil’s laugh, she thought. For he jeered at 
her and her companion. His mockery made her blood 
tingle; his eyes said evil things of her. Her cheeks went 
hot-red under that one flashing look. 

But he was not just now concerned with her! He 


152 


TIMBER-WOLF 


meant to ignore her until he had given his mind to other 
matters! He was still shouting in that wonderful, 
golden voice of his; to every name in a calendar not of 
saints he laid his tongue as he read Babe Deveril’s title 
clear for him. And, name to name, Babe Deveril 
checked off with him, hurling back anathema and epi¬ 
thet as good as came his way. . . . Lynette understood 
that both men had forgotten her. To them, passion- 
gripped as they were, it was as though she did not exist 
and had never existed. And yet it was largely because 
of her that they were gathering themselves to fly at 
each other! Man inconsistent and therefore man. 
Otherwise something either higher or lower; either of a 
devil-order or a god-order. But as it is . . . better as 
it is . . . something of god and devil and altogether 
—man. 

And children of a sort, in their hearts. For, before 
a blow was struck, they called names! So fast did the 
words fly, so hot and furious were they, that she had the 
curious sense that their battle would end as it began, in 
insults and mutterings. But when Timber-Wolf had 
shouted: Sneak and cur and coward ... a man to 
rifle another man’s pockets, after that other had played 
square and been generous with you. . . And when 
Deveril, his hands still lifted, while in his heart he could 
have wept for a club lost, shouted back: “Cur and cow¬ 
ard yourself . . . with a rifle against a man who has 
nothing . . then she saw that the last word had been 
spoken and that blows were inevitable. She drew back 
swiftly, as any onlooker must give room to two big wild- 
wood beasts. 

“Coward? Bruce Standing a coward? Why, damn 
your dirty soul . . 

Bruce Standing caught his rifle by the end of the 
barrel; at first Lynette, and Deveril also, thought that he 


TIMBER-WOLF 


153 - 

meant to use it as a club. But instead he flourished it 
about his head but the once, and hurled it so far from 
him that it went, flashing in the sunlight, above a pine 
top and fell far away somewhere down the slope. 
Never in all his life had Bruce Standing had any man 
even think of naming him coward. As well name sun¬ 
light darkness. For all men who knew Bruce Standing, 
and all men who for the first and only time looked him 
square in the eyes, knew of him that he was fearless. 

Thus with a gesture ... he abandoned wordy out¬ 
pourings of wrath and hurled himself into flesh-and- 
blood combat. He did not turn to right or left for the 
dwindling camp-fire; he came straight through it, his 
two long arms outstretched, seeking Deveril. And Babe 
Deveril, the moment he saw how the rifle sped through 
the air and understood his kinsman’s challenge, leaped 
forward eagerly to the meeting with him. Their four 
boots began scattering firebrands. . . . 

Lynette, with all her fast-beating heart, wanted to 
come to Babe Deveril’s aid. The one thing which mat¬ 
tered was that, at her hour of need, he had stood up 
for her; her soul was tumultuously crying out for the 
opportunity to demonstrate beyond lip-service the mean¬ 
ing of gratitude. She caught up a stone, and through¬ 
out the fight held it gripped so hard that before the end 
her fingers were bleeding. But never an opportunity 
did she have to hurl it as long as those two contended. 

Once it entered her thought that she must have 
dreamed of Bruce Standing, shot and bleeding and sense¬ 
less on the floor at the Gallup House. For now, so few 
hours after, he gave no slightest hint of being a man 
recently badly wounded. There was more of common 
sense in a man’s dying of such a wound as his than in 
his striking such great, hammer-hard blows with both 
arms. He created within her from that moment an 


154 


TIMBER-WOLF 


odd sensation which grew with her later; the man was 
not of the common mould. Something beyond and 
above mere flesh and blood and the routine of human 
qualifications inspired him. There was something in- 
evitable about Bruce Standing. . . . 

Babe Deveril fought like a young, lissome tiger. . . . 
He fought with all of the might that lay within him, 
muscle and mind and controlling spirit. When he struck 
a blow he put into it, with a little coughing grunt, every 
last ounce of hostility which was at his command; with 
every blow he longed to kill. And, as though the two 
were blood-brothers, Bruce Standing fought as did Babe 
Deveril. Straight, hard, merciless blow to answer blow 
as straight and hard and merciless. . . . 

Timber-Wolf was a man to laugh at his own mine 
muckers when they could not thrust a boulder aside, 
and to stoop and set his hands and arms and back to 
the labor and pluck the thing up and hurl it above their 
bewildered heads. He smote as though he carried a 
war-club in each hand; he received a crashing blow full 
in the face, and, though the blood came, he did not 
feel it; he struck back, and his great iron fist beat 
through DeveriFs guarding arms. No man, or at least no 
man whom Bruce Standing in his wild life had ever met, 
could have stood up against that blow. Babe Deveril, 
with the life almost jarred out of his body, went down. 
And Bruce Standing, growling like an angry bear, caught 
him up and lifted him high in air and flung him far away 
from him, as lightly as though he flung but a fifty-pound 
weight. And where Babe Deveril fell he lay still. . . . 
Lynette ran to him and knelt and put her hands at his 
shoulders, thinking him dead, 
f A short fight it had been, but already had the swift 
end come. So hard had that blow been, so tremendous 
had been the crash against rock and earth when the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


155 


flung body struck, there appeared to be but a pale flame' 
of life, flickering wanly, in Deveril’s body. Timber- 
Wolf came and stood over him and over Lynette, gloat¬ 
ing, mumbling; muttering while his great chest heaved: 
‘‘Little rat that he is! A man to take advantage when 
he found me down; a man to cheat me of the she-cat 
that shot me. I could crush him into the dirt with my 
boot heel . . 

“You great big brute! . . 

It was then that she sprang to her feet and, almost 
inarticulate with her own warring emotions, grief and 
fear and anger and hatred, flung the jagged stone full 
into his face. He was unprepared; the stone struck him 
full upon the forehead; he staggered backward, stum¬ 
bling, almost falling; his hands flew to his face. He was 
near-stunned; blinded. Deveril was on his elbow. . . . 

“Come!’’ she screamed wildly. “Quick! You and 
I ” 

“Treacherous devil-cat!” There was his thunderous 
voice shouting so that she, so near him, was almost deaf¬ 
ened. 

Bruce Standing, wiping the blood from his eyes, his two 
arms out before him, came back to the attack. Deveril, 
on his knees, surged to his feet; Standing struck and 
Deveril went down like a poorly balanced timber falling. 
Lynette was groping for another stone. Suddenly she 
felt upon her wrist a grip like a circlet of cutting steel. 
She was whisked about; Timber-Wolf held her, drawn 
close, staring face into face. His other hand was lifted 
slowly; suddenly she felt it caught in her loose hair. . . . 

And then, inexplicable to her now and ever after, 
there was in her ear the sound of Bruce Standing’s laugh¬ 
ter. The hand at her hair fell away. It went up to his 
eyes, wiping them clear. And then she saw in the eyes 
what she had read in the voice . . . laughter. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


156 

‘^Well, Deveril, what now?” 

Again Deveril was on his feet. He swayed; his face 
was dead-white; it was easy to see how fiercely he bent 
every energy at his command to remain upright. There 
was a queer look in the eyes he turned upon Timber- 
Wolf. 

^T never saw a man . . . like you.” 

He spoke with effort; he was like a man far gone in 
some devastating lung trouble; his voice was windy and 
vibrant and weak. 

^‘Baby Devil!” jeered Standing. ^^Oh, Baby Devil! 
And, when it comes to dealing with a real man. . . . 
Why, then, less devil than baby! Ho! . . .” 
am going to kill you. . . .” 

God aids the righteous 1 ” Standing told him sternly. 
^^You go. To hell with you and your kind.” 

God aids the righteous! This from the lips of Bruce 
Standing, Timber-Wolf! . . . Lynette, her nerves like 
wires smitten in an electric storm, could have burst into 
wild laughter. . . . She wrenched at her wrist; Stand¬ 
ing's big hand neither tightened nor relaxed, giving her 
the feeling of despair which a thick steel chain would 
have given had she been locked and deserted in a dun¬ 
geon. 

Deveril was looking over his shoulder. In his glance 
. . . the sun was near setting among the pmes, and they 
saw his face as his head jerked about . . . any one 
might read his thought: down there, somewhere among 
the bushes, lay a rifle! 

Standing laughed at him. And Standing, dragging 
Lynette along with him as easily as he might have drawn 
a child of six, went down the slope first. And first he 
came to the fallen rifle and caught it up and brought it 
back to the trampled camp-fire. 

‘‘YouTe sneak enough for that, Baby Devil!” he 


TIMBER-WOLF 


157 


taunted. ‘‘For that or any other coward act. And so 
is this woman of yours. So I spike the artillery. God! 
If the earth were only populated by men! . . . Now 
IVe got this word for your crafty ear: listen well.’’ In¬ 
stantly his voice became as hard as flint and carried 
assurance that every word he was going to say would be 
a word meant with all his heart and soul. And all the 
while he gripped Lynette by the wrist and seemed un¬ 
conscious of that fact or that she struggled to be free. 
“I’ve given you a fair fight, you who don’t fight fair. 
And I’ve knocked the daylights out of you. And now 
I’m sick of you. You can go. You can sneak off 
through the timber and be out of sight inside of two 
minutes. Yet I’ll give you five. And at the end of 
that time, if you’re in sight, I am going to shoot you 
dead!” 

Deveril glared at him, his glance laid upon Standing’s 
as one rapier may clash across another. 

“Do your dirty killing and be damned to you!” said 
Deveril briefly. 

Timber-Wolf looked at him in surprise; he began to 
cast about him for a fresh and clearer comprehension 
of a man whom he despised. He strove with all his 
power of clean vision to see to the bottom of Deveril’s 
most hidden -thought. 

“Now,” said Standing slowly,“I am almost sorry for 
what I said. It strikes into me. Kid, that you are not 
afraid! ” 

Deveril, breathless, panting, holding himself erect only 
through a great call upon his will, made no spoken an¬ 
swer, but again laid the blade of his glance shiningly 
across that of Timber-Wolf. 

“You die just the same,” said Standing coldly. “It’s 
only because I gave my word; that you can take in man- 
to-man style from me. Kid; for once I am not ashamed 


TIMBER-WOLF 


158 

to be related to you. Either you travel or, in five min¬ 
utes, you are a dead man.’^ 

Slowly DeveriFs haggard eyes roved to Lynette’s face 
. . . Lynette chained to Bruce Standing in that crush¬ 
ing grip. ... 

‘‘I am going,’’ he said. And both knew he said it in 
fearlessness but also in understanding of the power 
which lay in a rifle bullet and the weakness of the barri¬ 
cade offered to it by a human skull. And both under¬ 
stood, further, that it was to Lynette that he spoke. 
“I am coming back!” 

For God’s sake 1 ” she screamed. Go! Hurry! ” 

“Hurry!” Bruce Standing, with his own word of 
honor in the balance against the weight of the life of a 
man whom he began to respect, was all anxiety to have 
his kinsman gone. 

Deveril’s last word, with his last look, was for Lyn¬ 
ette. 

“A man who doesn’t know when he’s beat is a 
fool. . . . But you can be sure of this: I’ll be back!” 

He went, walking crookedly at first among the knee- 
high bushes; then growing straighter as he passed into 
the demesne of the tall, straight pines. Not swiftly, 
since there was no possibility of any swift play of mus¬ 
cles left within him; but steadily. 

“A man!” grunted Timber-Wolf. Whether in ad¬ 
miration or disgust, Lynette could not guess from his 
tone. 

He had his watch in the palm of his hand; her gaze 
was riveted on it. It seemed so tiny a thing in that 
great valley of his hand; a bauble. Yet its even more 
insignificant minute-hand was assuming the ofiice of 
arbiter of human life; she knew that the moment the 
fifth minute was ticked off Bruce Standing, true to his 
sworn word, would relinquish her wrist just long enough 


TIMBER-WOLF 


159 


to whip his rifle to his shoulder and fire . . . in case the 
uncertain form of Babe Deveril, going up over the ridge, 
were still in sight. And she knew within her soul that 
just so sure as gun butt struck shoulder and finger found 
trigger, so sure would Babe Deveril toss his arms up and 
fall dead. . . . 

Hurry, Kid . . . you damn^ fool . . . hurry. . . 

All the while Timber-Wolf was muttering and glar¬ 
ing at his watch and clinching her wrist; all the while 
forgetting that he held her. And, this also she knew, 
regretting that he had the job set before him of shooting 
down another man. 

Lynette, her whole body atingle, every sense keyed 
up to its highest stressing, knew as soon as did Bruce 
Standing when he was going to drop her wrist and 
jerk his gun up. The five minutes were passmg; still, 
though at a distance far up on the ridge, seen only by 
glimpses now and then under the setting sun. Babe Dev¬ 
eril was driving on, a man half bereft of his sober senses, 
his brain reeling from savage blows and on fire with 
rage and mortification; they saw him among the pines; 
they lost him; they saw him again. Never once had he 
turned to look back. Yet it did not seem that he 
hastened. . . . 

Timber-Wolf, growling deep down in his throat, lifted 
his rifle. But Lynette, before the act, knew! She flung 
herself with sudden fury upon his uplifted arm; she 
caught it, and with the weight of her body dragged it 
down. He sought to fling her off; she wrapped both of 
her arms about his right arm; she jerked at it so that 
he could have no slightest hope of a steady aim. . . . 

He turned and looked down into her eyes; deep . . . 
deep. For what seemed to her a long, long time he 
stood looking down into her eyes. 

Then, with sudden anger, he thrust her aside. With- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


i6o 

out looking to see if she had fallen or stumbled and run, 
he raised his rifle again. 

But just in time Babe Deveril was gone, over the 
ridge. . . . 


CHAPTER XII 


“And now that you^re half scared to death, you’d 
like to make a man believe that you are not afraid of 
the devil himself! ” 

She flashed a burning look at him; chokingly she cried; 

“At least, thank God, I am not afraid of you, Bruce 
Standing! ... Big brute and bully and . . . Yes! 
. . . Coward!” 

And yet, as never before in her life, her heart was 
beating wildly, leaping against her side like an impris¬ 
oned thing struggling to break through the walls which 
shut it in. His fingers were still locked about her wrist; 
his grip tightened; he drew her closer in order to look 
the more clearly into her eyes. Then his slow, mocking 
laughter smote across her nerves like a rude hand brush¬ 
ing across harp-strings, making clashing discords. 

“You begin well!” he jeered at her. “We are going 
to see how you end.” 

“Let me go!” She jerked back; she twisted and 
dragged at her wrist, trying wildly to break free. His 
mockery stung her into desperation. With her one free 
hand she struck him across the face. 

She struck hard, with all her might, with trebled 
strength through her fury. And, maddening her, he 
gave no sign that she had hurt him. Still jeering at her, 
all that he did was drop his rifle, so that with his other 
hand he could take captive the hand which had struck 
him. And then it was so easy a thing for him to take 
both her wrists into the grip of his one, right hand; held 
thus, no matter how she fought, hers was the sensation 

i6i 


i 62 


TIMBER-WOLF 


of utter powerlessness which is a child’s when an elder 
person, teasing, catches its two hands in one and lets it 
cry and kick. . . . Suddenly she grew quiet. . . . 

^‘Well?” she demanded, panting, forcing her eyes to 
a steady meeting with his. ^‘What do you intend to 
do with me, now you’ve got me? There doesn’t appear 
to be any one near to keep you from woman-beating!” 

^‘What am I going to do with you? If I knew, I’d 
tell you! When I do know. I’ll show you. ... If I 
could catch you by the hair and drag you through hell 
after me. ... I pay all of my debts, girl! I have fol¬ 
lowed you; I have found you; I have taken you, prying 
you loose from your running mate. ... You thought 
it fun to laugh at me once, did you ? Before I have done 
with you, you would give your soul for the power and 
the will to laugh. . . .” 

‘Tt is because I laughed at you?” she asked wonder- 
ingly. 

^‘For what else?” he said sternly. 

‘^And not because of a pistol shot?” 

‘^Less for that than for the other. I allow it any 
man’s privilege to shoot at me if he doesn’t like me; 
but no man’s nor woman’s privilege to laugh.” 

‘^How do you know it was I who shot ''mu ? . . . Did 
you see?” 

‘‘Had I seen, I should not have held it against you; 
for that would have meant that you struck in the open, 
any man’s or woman’s right! But to shoot a man in 
the back. . . . Here; help me!” 

She was perplexed to know what he meant. He 
dragged her after him, a dozen paces from the fire; still 
holding her two hands caught in his one, he sat down 
upon a big stone. Suddenly it struck her that all this 
time, since he had dropped his rifle, his left arm had 
been hanging limply at his side. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


163 

‘‘When I let go of you,” he said, very stern, you 
try to run for it I’ll catch you and drag you back. And 
I’m in no mood for gentleness!” At that he let her go. 
He put his right hand to his shirt collar and began un¬ 
buttoning it. 

“My wound has broken open,” he said, with a grunt 
of disgust. “That Baby Devil of yours didn’t care 
where he hit a man! . . . Here; there’s a bandage that 
has slipped. And I’m losing blood again. See what 
you can do.” 

“Why should I?” she demanded coolly. “What is 
it to me whether or not you bleed to death ? ” 

Fury filled his eyes and he shouted at her: 

“You, by God, drilled the cowardly hole; and you 
doctor it! ” 

“And if I won’t?” 

“Then, as I live. I’ll make you! One way or another, 
girl. I’ll make you. That’s Bruce Standing’s word for 
you. Now hurry! ” 

She cast a quick glance over her shoulder; she was 
on the verge of breaking into wild, headlong flight. . . . 
But certain knowledge restrained her; she knew that he 
would overtake her, that he would drag her back and 
. . . that he was in no mood for gentleness. Therefore, 
while her whole soul rebelled, she came closer, as he 
commanded. 

. . . She had never dreamed that any man born could 
have a chest like that; nor such shoulders, massive and 
yet beautiful as the pure-lined expression of power; nor 
such skin, soft and smooth and white as a girl’s, the 
outward sign of another beauty, that of clean health. 
Clean, hard, triumphant physical manhood. ... It 
struck her at the time, so that she marvelled at herself 
and wondered dully if she were taking leave of her sober 
senses, that there was truer, finer beauty in the body of 


164 


TIMBER-WOLF 


such a man than in any girFs; that here was a true art¬ 
ist’s true triumph. . . . Physically he was splendid, 
superb. ... In his own image did God make man. . . . 

With his right hand he was working with the ban¬ 
dage where it was taped about the bulge of his left 
breast; on the white cloth were fresh gouts of blood. 
Impatiently he tore at his shirt collar; on the bandage, 
where it passed about his left shoulder-blade, were red 
stains. 

^‘Wait a minute,” he commanded. “In my pocket 
I’ve got some sort of salve; some idiotic mess that Billy 
Winch cooked up; the Lord knows what it is or what he 
made it of; iodine and soap and flaxseed and cobwebs, 
most likely! But it will chink up the leak . . . and it 
feels good and hasn’t poisoned me so far! Here, smear 
it on.” 

. . . She felt as though she were dreaming all this! 
That wild, uncontrollable laughter of hers which swept 
over her at times of taut nerves and absurd situations, 
threatened to master her. She fought it down. She 
touched his back. She, Lynette, administering to Tim¬ 
ber-Wolf ... it would be better for her, far better 
for her, if his wound were poisoned and he died! . . . 
Yet, as she touched his back, it was with wondrously 
gentle fingers. There was a wound there; the ugly 
wound made by a bullet, half healed, broken open anew 
under heavy blows. A little shiver, a strange, new sort 
of shiver, ran through her; here she was down to ele¬ 
mental, she, who with just cause and leaping instinct 
hated this man, ministering to him. . . . 

“Smear the stuff on, I tell you. Over the wound. 
Enough of it to shut out any infernal infection. . . . 
What in the devil’s name is holding you? Waiting for 
the sun to go down and come up again?” 

She bit her lips; he looked suddenly into her face, and 


TIMBER-WOLF 


165 

could have no clew to her thought or emotion; he could 
not guess whether she bit her lip to keep from laughing 
or crying! . . . She spread over the gaping wound a 
thin film of Billy Winch’s pungent salve. As she touched 
the wound she looked for a muscular contraction, for 
the flinching from pain. He did not move; there was 
not so much as the involuntary quiver of a muscle. She 
wondered if the man felt as other human beings did? 

. . . “Now a fresh piece of tape. That idiot Winch 
packed me off with my pockets loaded like a drug-store 
shelf I That’s all for this time; we’ll make a new dress¬ 
ing and bathe the wound in the morning. Now . . . 
Here! Let me look at you 1” 

He crimsoned her face with that way of his. She 
whipped back from him and her eyes brightened with 
defiance. He sat looking at her a long time, while with 
slow fingers he buttoned his collar; his face showed not 
so much as a flicker of expression; his eyes were keen, 
but gave no clew to his thought. 

The sun was already down beyond the ridge; shad¬ 
ows here in the little hollow had gathered swiftly; dark 
was on the way. He rose and went to the fire, for an 
instant turning his back upon her as he piled on the 
dead-wood which Deverfl had gathered. But over his 
shoulder he called to her coolly: 

“I’ve warned you not to try to run for it!” 

And from his tone she knew that he had easily guessed 
her thought; for the impulse to attempt flight had been 
strong upon her the moment that he turned. She re¬ 
mained where she stood; if only it were pitch-dark, if 
only he went on a few paces farther away from her, if 
only the fringe of trees offering refuge were a few paces 
nearer. . . . She was quick to see the folly of making 
a premature dash; the wisdom in allowing him to think 
that she could be looked to for obedience! Thus, later, 


TIMBER-WOLF 


166 

when her chance came and his watchfulness nodded, she’d 
be up and away like a shot. . . . 

The fire caught the fresh fuel and crackled and blazed, 
sparks showering about her where she stood. Now 
Standing, his face looking ruddy in the glow, turned 
toward her, saying curtly: 

^Xome here. I want a good look at you ... in the 
full light.” 

“Brute and bully!” she cried, struggling with herself 
for an outward semblance of calm. “You hold the high 
card. But the game isn’t played out between you and 
me yet, “Bruce Standing.” While speaking she came 
closer, so that she too stood in the red fire glow. She 
held her head up; she returned his unswerving gaze un¬ 
swervingly. 

“You’ve got the vocabulary of a gambler’s daughter,” 
he said. “That’s what you are, eh? A gambler’s girl 
and, in your own penny-ante way, a gambler yourself!” 

“I am the daughter of Dick Brooke!” she told him 
proudly. “Dick Brooke was a man and a miner and 
after that, if you like, a gambler.” 

“Dick Brooke? Dick Brooke’s daughter? Why, 
then . . . the daughter also of a dancing-girl! ” 

Her face went white with anger. 

“Oh ... I hate you! Oh, I hate you! You . . . 
you are contemptible!” 

“Aha! So that hurts!” he jeered at her. 

“It is a cruel lie. Ol3nnphe Labelle was not a danc¬ 
ing-girl. . . . She was an artist! And a woman among 
ten thousand ...” 

The firelight cast its warm glow over her face. She 
lifted her chin defiantly. Her hair fell in loose, rippling 
strands of bronze and over her shoulders. She was very 
beautiful thus; no woman on whom Bruce Standing had 
ever looked was half so beautiful. And haughty, like a 


TIMBER-WOLF 167 

princess . . . like a high-bred lady made captive, yet 
scorning to show sign of fear. . . . 

“You are Lynette Brooke,” he muttered; “you are 
the girl who laughed at me, shaming me; you are the 
girl who shot me in the back! Those are the things to 
remember. A treacherous cat of a woman; a gun woman! 
One to go sneaking around with a revolver at hand to 
shoot a man in the back with ...” 

“Any woman, dealing with men like you, has need of 
a gun!” 

“I’ll tell you this,” he muttered. “I’m a fair judge 
of men, if not of women. And when it’s a case of a 
man . . . why just show me a man who carries a 
pocket-gun and I’ll show you a cheap ragamufiin, a 
tin horn, or an overgrown kid ... or a dirty coward. 
A man’s weapon is a rifle carried in the open; give me a 
good pair of boots and I’ll stamp the white livers out 
of a whole crowd of your little gunmen. ... As for 
women, gun-toting women ...” He broke off with a 
heavy shrug. “Now, girl, I’m hungry. The smell of 
your coffee has been in my nostrils a long time. See 
what you can give me to eat.” 

“So I am to wait on you ... to be your servant . . .” 

“To be my slave!” he shouted at her. “Proud, 
are you ? So much the better. I swore to make you 
pay, and you begin paying now. Yes, as my slave as 
long as I like! ” 

“And you call yourself a man!” 

“I call myself the best man that ever came into this 
wilderness country,” he told her impudently. “If you 
are in doubt, bring on any other man of your choice and 
ask him, with your pretty smiles, if he cares to stand 
up against me! Yes, a man who goes rough-shod over 
everything and anything and anybody who stands in his 
way. 


♦ • • 


TIMBER-WOLF 


168 

‘‘Boaster!’’ she named him scornfully. 

He laughed loudly at that. 

“I am no boaster and in your heart you know it! . . . 
There’s another damn-fool convention for you, that 
business of great modesty! A man who is sure of him¬ 
self doesn’t have to walk easy and talk easy, but can 
tell other men what he is, and then, by glory, show ’em ! ” 

Still she was scornful of him . . . though she could 
not keep out of her thought that picture which he had 
made when, axe in hand, he had laid an armed jailer in 
the dust, and single-handed had made a jail delivery 
which hundreds of other men wanted to make and held 
back from . . . through lack of that unrestricted con¬ 
fidence which was Bruce Standing’s. 

He was staring at her. 

“You, too ... for a woman . . . have courage,” he 
muttered. And then, with a sudden arm flung out: 
“I’m hungry, I tell you.” 

“I’d rather die . . .” 

“It’s easy to die ... for any one who is not a cow¬ 
ard. And I just told you that you had courage.” He 
came suddenly close to her. “But there are other things 
that are not so easy! What if I put my two arms 
about you? If I hold you tight . . . and set my lips 
to yours . . . and . . .” 

“You beast . . .” 

“But my dinner?” he jeered at her. 

She went hot and cold; she cast a quick glance toward 
the forest land where the night was thickening; she cast 
another glance at his rifle where it lay, a few feet from 
the fire. Then, her lower lip caught between her teeth, 
she went to the tin can in which she and Babe Deveril 
had made coffee. 

“A funny thing,” said Bruce Standing, watching her; 
“you skipped out, hot-foot, from Big Pine, thinking you 


TIMBER-WOLF 


169 

had killed me! And your little friend, meaning Baby 
Devil, skipped along, thinking he had done Jim Taggart 
in 1 And, after all, nobody much hurt! . . . Glad to 
hear that Taggart did not die?’’ 

knew it already,” she said, just to cheat him of 
any satisfaction in telling her. 

Mexicali Joe skipped this way, too,” he went on 
swiftly, so swiftly that he succeeded in tricking her into 
saying: 

knew that, too!” 

Then he laughed at her, informing her: 

‘‘Now there remains little for you to tell me. You 
knew Taggart was still on his feet and you knew Joe was 
travelling this way, and you’ve come up from the gen¬ 
eral direction of Joe’s dugout! Which tells me one 
thing: where you and Baby Devil got the coffee and 
this tinned stuff. Now let’s hear details!” 

“Oh ... I hate you!” 

“You’ve told me that before. And . . .” He burst 
into booming laughter. And then, still laughter-choked, 
he cried: “Like a good old-time two-handled sword is 
the man Bruce Standing! And yet his wit, like a Span¬ 
ish dagger, is good match for a girl’s! ” 

She made no reply, though her blood tingled, and 
though her hand, with a will of its own, must be held 
back from strikiug him across the face again. She 
brought him his coffee and thereafter food which he 
called for from among the tins. 

“What do you think has happened to your gentleman 
friend?” he mocked her. And when she refused to 
reply, he told her: “He’s gone on . . . where? After 
Taggart? To get a rifle and come back? Planning to 
hide behind a tree and pop me off while I’m not look¬ 
ing? That would make a hit with you, wouldn’t it? 
Like your own best game of shooting a man in the back! 


170 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Or has he forgotten a pair of bright eyes and warm 
arms and red lips ? And is he content to trail Mexicali, 
spying on him, trying to get in on the new gold diggings ? 
Which, girl?” 

“He hates you! . . . with cause. And he is no cow¬ 
ard; he is as good a man, if less brute, as you, Bruce 
Standing! . . 

When he spoke finally it was to say: 

“We’re going to be short on provisions for a day or 
so, girl. Hungry?” 

Here was her first, altogether too vague clew to his 
intentions. Quickly she asked: 

“Where are we going?” 

“I to keep an engagement; you to accompany me.” 

He supposed that he had told her nothing. And yet 
she, quick-witted, having never let slip from her mind a 
certain suspicion when Mexicali Joe had too readily suc¬ 
cumbed to Taggart, cried out: 

“To a meeting with Mexicali Joe!” 

“What makes you think that?” he asked sharply. 

She pretended to laugh at him. He ate in silence; 
drank his coffee; thereafter, stuffing a pipe full of crude 
black tobacco, smoked thoughtfully. All the while the 
fire burned lower and the darkness, ringing them around, 
drew closer in. She had been on the alert, while look¬ 
ing to be hopelessly bowed where she sat. Suddenly he 
was at her side, his grip like a steel bracelet about her 
wrist. 

“About ready to jump and run for it?” he taunted 
her. “Not to-night, my girl; and not to-morrow night 
nor yet for many a day to come. I’ve got my own 
plans for you.” 

“Are you going to take me back to Big Pine? To 
hand me over to the law, with a charge of attempted 
murder against me?” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


171 

am going to take you with me on into the wilder¬ 
ness. Into a country which is absolutely the kingdom 
of Bruce Standing. Haven’t I told you that I have my 
own plans for you? I can hand you over to the cheap 
degradation of a trial and conviction and jail sentence 
whenever I am ready for it. . . 

“You can’t keep me from killing myself . . 

“But I can! I am master here, understand? And 
you. . . . By heaven, you are nothing but my slave so 
long as I tolerate you I . . . Look here, what I brought 
for you! . . . For I knew I’d find you I” 

He began unwinding from his big body a thin steel 
chain, a chain which he had brought with him from his 
ranch headquarters, where it had served as leash for a 
wolf-hound. With a quick movement he snapped the 
end of it about her waist; there was a steel padlock 
scarcely bigger than a silver half-dollar; she heard the 
click as he locked it. Then he stood back from her, 
the other end of the slight chain in his hand . . . and 
laughed at her! 

“The sign of your servitude! . . . Proud ? One way 
to make you pay! Will you laugh again, girl? Will 
you, do you think, ever have the second chance to 
shoot me in the back? . . . Come; we must be on our 
way before daylight.” 

He caught up his rifle; that, together with the end 
of her chain, he held in his hand. He began putting 
out the fire, stamping on the living coals. Making her 
follow him, he went to the creek several times for water, 
which he carried in his big hat, which held so much 
more than any tin can in camp. When the fire was out, 
he turned with her toward the bowery shelter which 
Babe Deveril, working and singing, had made for her. 
With his shuffling boots he kicked the culled branches 
into two heaps. He wrapped the end of her chain 


172 


TIMBER-WOLF 


about his wrist; she heard the snap as he fastened it. 
He thrust his rifle under him. 

^‘1 am going to sleep,” he told her bluntly and cast 
himself down. ‘^You with your payment just begun, 
may lie awake all night . . . wondering. , , 

... But it was a long, long while, a weary time of 
darkness sprinkled with stars before he went to sleep. 
She sat up on her couch of boughs, the chain about her 
waist galling her. . . . 


CHAPTER XIII 


It may appear a strange thing that Lynette Brooke 
slept at all that night. But a fatigued body, healthy 
and young, demanded its right, and she did sleep and 
sleep well. A far stranger thing was that, after she had 
sat in the dark a long time, there had at last come a 
queer little smile upon her lips and into her eyes, and 
she had gone to sleep smiling! 

For in the deep black silence her quick mind had been 
busy, never so busy; out of tiny scraps it had con¬ 
structed a mental patchwork. Nor were all dark-hued 
threads weaving in and out of it; here and there the 
sombre pattern had bright-hued spots. Her courage 
was high, her hopes always at surging high tide; her 
senses keen. And, after all, Bruce Standing was a blunt, 
forthright man, in no degree subtle. . . . 

He had given her the impression an hour ago of being 
entirely brute beast. That was true. Further, she 
told herself with growing conviction, that it had been 
his great intent to make her regard him as brute and 
beast; she had angered him, she had drawn upon her¬ 
self his vengeful wrath; he meant to make her pay; and 
his first step had been to make her afraid of him. . . . 
She went on to other thoughts; Bruce Standing was the 
man to defy Gallup in his own lair; the man to defy the 
sheriff; to hurl an axe at an armed deputy . . . and 
yet the only man in Big Pine to lift an angry hand 
against the unfair play of shutting little Mexicali Joe 
up in jail! He, alone, had not sought to steal Joe’s 
secret; he alone was ready, against all odds, to throw 


174 


TIMBER-WOLF 


the door back and let Joe go. Not altogether that the 
part of the brute and beast! 

Another thing: Bruce Standing did not lie. She knew 
that. And he was not a coward; he did not do petty, 
cowardly things. . . . He meant her to believe that 
there was nothing too cruel and merciless for him to 
inflict upon her. Yet she had struck him in the face 
with a stone; she had struck him with her hands, and 
he had not so much as bruised the skin of her wrists 
with his big hard hands! . . . Eager he had been to 
humiliate her, calling her his slave; eagerly, as soon as 
he had read her pride, he grasped at the first means of 
torturing it. Why that great eagerness . . . unless he, 
despite his threat, was casting about in rather blind 
fashion for means to make her pay ? . . . He wanted 
her to be afraid of him . . . and it came to her in the 
dark, so that she smiled, that this was because there 
was little for her to fear! 

“In his rage,’^ she told herself, and, fettered as she 
was, a first gleam of triumph visited her, “he came roar¬ 
ing after me. And, now he has me, he doesn’t know 
what to do with me! To make me his unwilling slave 
. . . unwilling! . . . that is all that he can think of 
now.” 

And again there was comfort in the thought: 

“If he meant to harm me, why should he have let me 
go to-night ? An angry man, bent upon real brute ven¬ 
geance, would have struck at the first opportunity. The 
opportunity was when he sent Babe Deveril away and 
had me to do what he pleased with. And he only played 
the perfectly silly game of making me his slave . . . 
unwilling, ...” 

It was the thoughts which rose with the word that 
put the little smile into her eyes and brought the first 
softening of her troubled lips. . . . Several times she 


TIMBER-WOLF 


175 

heard him stirring restlessly; once he awakened her with 
his muttering, and she knew that he was asleep, but 
that either his wound pained him or his sleep was dis¬ 
turbed by unwelcome dreams—^perhaps both. 

Bruce Standing woke and sat up in the early chill 
dawn. He looked swiftly to where Lynette lay. She 
appeared to be plunged in deep, restful sleep. She lay 
comfortably snuggled in among the boughs; the curve 
of one arm was up about her face, so that he could not 
see her eyes. Naturally he believed them shut; her 
breathing was low and quiet, exactly as it should have 
been were she really fast asleep. . . . She looked pretty 
and tiny and tired out, but resting. Suddenly he 
frowned savagely. But he sat for a long time without 
stirring. 

Lynette put up her arms and stretched and yawned 
sleepily, and then, like a little girl of six, put her knuckles 
into her eyes. Then she, too, sat up quickly. 

^‘Oh,” she said brightly. ‘‘Are you awake already? 
And making not a bit of noise, so as to let me have my 
sleep out? Good morning, Mr. Timber-Wolf!” 

She was smiling at him! Smiling with soft red lips 
and gay eyes! 

He frowned and with a sudden lurch was on his feet. 

“Come,” he said harshly. “I want to make an early 
start.” 

She sprang to her feet as though all eagerness, ex¬ 
claiming brightly: 

“If you’ll get the fire started, I’ll have breakfast in a 
minute! There isn’t much in the larder, but you’ll see 
what a nice breakfast I can make of it. Then I’ll 
dress your wound and we’ll be on our way.” 

“Look here,” muttered Standing, swinging about to 
stare at her, “what the devil are you up to?” 

“What do you mean?” she asked innocently. 


176 


TIMBER-WOLF 


mean this cheap play-acting stuff ... as though 
you were as happy as a bird 

^‘Why, I always believe in making the best of a bad 
mess, don’t you?” she retorted. ^^And, after all, how 
do you know that I’m not as happy as a bird ? I nearly 
always am.” 

His eyes were oiazing, his face flushed; she saw that 
she was lashing him into rage. She began to fear that 
she had gone too far; for the present she would go no 
farther. But meanwhile she gave him no hint of any 
trepidation, but kept the clear, unconcerned look in her 
eyes. 

He strode away from her, toward the charred remains 
of last night’s fire. He held her chain in his hand; she 
hurried along after him, so that not once could the 
links tighten; so that not once could he feel that he was 
dragging an unwilling captive behind him. Her heart 
was beating like mad; she was aquiver with excitement 
over the working out of her scheme, yet she gave him 
no inkling of any kind of nervousness. 

don’t know what you are up to and I don’t care,” 
he said abruptly. ‘‘You are to do what you are told, 
girl.” 

“Of course!” she said quickly. “I understand that. 
I am ready. . . .” 

“I am going to talce the chain off you now, simply 
because I don’t need it during daylight. But you’re not 
to run away; if you try it I’ll run you down and drag 
you back. Do you understand? And after that I’ll 
keep you chained up.” 

“I understand,” she nodded again. And, when he 
had removed the chain from her waist, all the time not 
looking at her while she, all the time, stood smiling, she 
said a quiet “Thank you.” 

“While I get some wood,” he went on, “you can take 


TIMBER-WOLF 


177 


some cans and go down to the creek for water. I’U 
trust you that far . . . and don’t you trust too much 
to the screen of willows to give you a chance for a get¬ 
away ! I tell you, I’d overhaul you as sure as there is 
a God in heaven! ” 

She caught up two cans and went down the slope 
toward the creek. To keep him from guessing how, all 
of a sudden, her heart was fluttering again, she sang a 
little song as she went. He stared after her, puzzled 
and wondering. Then with a short, savage grunt, he 
began gathering wood. 

Was now her time? This her chance? She sang 
more loudly, clearly and cheerily. She wanted to look 
back to see if he was watching her every step; yet she 
beat down the temptation, knowing that if he did watch 
and did see her turn he would know that she was over- 
eager for flight. She came to the creek; she passed 
carelessly about a little clump of willows. Now she 
looked back, peering through the branches. He was 
stooping, gathering wood; his back was to her! 

*^Now!” her impulses cried within her. 

She looked about her hurriedly, in all directions. 
There was so much open country here; big pines, wide¬ 
spaced. If she ran down the slope he must surely see 
her when she had gone fifty or a hundred yards. And 
then he’d be after her! If she turned to right or left, 
the case was almost the same. If it were only dark 1 
But the sun was rising . . . 

She began singing again, so that he might hear. A 
sudden anger blazed up within her. With all his blunt 
ways, the man was not without his own sort of shrewd¬ 
ness; he had known that she had no chance here to 
escape him; no chance for such a head start as to give 
her an even break in a race with him. 

. . . After ten minutes she came back to him; she 


TIMBER-WOLF 


178 

carried a dripping can in each hand; she had bathed 
hands and arms and face and throat; she had combed 
her hair out through her fingers, making new thick 
braids, with loosely curling ends. She had taken time 
to twist those soft ends about her fingers. He was 
standing over his newly built fire; his rifle, with the 
chain tossed across it, lay against a rock; he gave no 
sign of noting her approach. ... Yet, while they ate 
a hurriedly warmed breakfast, she caught him several 
times looking at her curiously. . . . 

Her heart began again to beat happily; never was 
hope long departed from the breast of Lynette Brooke. 
She kept telling herself, over and over, that he was not 
going to be brute and beast to her. Soon or late she 
would find her chance for escape from him; she would 
let him think her that weakling which it was his way 
to regard women in general; there would come the time 
when, once more free, she could laugh at him. . . . And 
she, when he did not observe, looked curiously at him 
many a time. 

When they had eaten and he had gathered up the 
few scraps of food and had very carefully extinguished 
the last ember of their fire, he wound the chain about 
his middle again, caught up the rifle and said briefly 
and still without looking at her: 

^‘Come.” 

She followed him, neither hesitating nor questioning; 
thus she was gleefully sure she angered him. . . . She 
wondered what the day held in store for her; she won¬ 
dered what of good and bad lay ahead; and yet she was 
now less filled with terror than with the burning zest 
for life itself. Bruce Standing had told her that he was 
going to keep an appointment; he had been the man to 
release Mexicali Joe; Mexicali Joe had whispered some¬ 
thing and Standing had laughed; Mexicali Joe was now 


TIMBER-WOLF 


179 


ahead of them, pretending to lead Taggart and Gallup 
and Cliff Shipton to his gold! Her thoughts were busy 
enough and she, like her silent companion, had small 
need for talk. 

She wondered about Babe Deveril; how badly hurt he 
had been after Bruce Standing’s mauling; what he was 
doing now; where he was ? A hundred times that morn¬ 
ing, hearing bird or squirrel and once a leaping buck, 
she looked to see Babe Deveril bursting back upon 
them. . . . Had he not gone far, last night? Had he 
remained near their camp and was he following them 
to-day? . . . 

They passed over a ridge and turned into a little cup 
of a green valley; Standing, stalking ahead of her, went 
to a thicket and drew from it a saddle and bridle and 
saddle blankets and a small canvas pack. Then, stand¬ 
ing with his hands on his hips, staring off in all direc¬ 
tions, he whistled shrilly. Whistled, and waited lis¬ 
tening, and whistled again. Lynette heard, from far off, 
the quick, glad whicker of a horse. And here came the 
horse galloping; kicking up its heels; shaking its head 
with flying mane; circling, snorting, with lowered head; 
at standstill for a moment, a golden sorrel with snow- 
white mane and tail; a mount for even Timber-Wolf, 
lover of horses, to be proud to own and ride and whistle 
to through the forest land. . . . Lynette looked swiftly 
at Standing’s face; he was smiling; his eyes were bright. 

He went forward and stroked his horse’s satiny nose 
and wreathed a hand in the mane and led the animal to 
the saddle, calling him softly, ^‘Good old Daylight.” 
The horse nosed him; Standing laughed out loud and 
smote the great shoulder with open palm. . . . Lynette 
saw with clear vision that there was a great love be¬ 
tween man and animal; and she thought of another 
horse, Sunlight, slaughtered at Young Gallup’s orders, 


i8o 


TIMBER-WOLF 


and of Standing’s lisping rage and of her own nervous, 
uncontrollable laughter. . . . 

There came a deep, ugly growling—a throaty, wolfish 
menace, almost at her heels. She whirled about and 
cried out in sudden startled fright. 

^‘Lie down Thor! ” Standing shouted sternly. ‘‘Down, 
sir!” 

Lynette had never seen a dog lilce this one, big and 
lean and forbidding; as tall as a calf in her suddenly 
frightened eyes, wolfish looking, with stiff bristles rising 
along powerful neck and back, and eyes red-rimmed, 
and sharp-toothed mouth slavering. At Standing’s com¬ 
mand the great dog, which had come upon her on such 
noiseless pads, dropped to the ground as though a 
bullet instead of a commanding voice had drilled its 
heart. But still the steady eyes filled with suspicion 
and menace were fixed on her. 

“He’d tear your throat out if I gave the word,” said 
Standing. “Now you do what I tell you; go to him 
and set your hand on his head! ” 

“I won’t!” she cried out sharply, drawing back. The 
deep, throaty growl came again; the dog’s lips trembled 
and withdrew from the long, wolfish teeth; the whole 
gaunt form was aquiver. . . . 

“But you will! Otherwise . . . He’ll not hurt you 
when once I tell him not to. Go to him; put your hand 
on his head. . . . Afraid?” he jeered. 

She was afraid. Sick-afraid. And yet she gave her 
taunter one withering glance and stepped swiftly, though 
her flesh quivered, to the dog. 

“Steady, Thor!” cried Standing sternly. “You dog, 
steady, sir!” 

The dog growled and the teeth were like evil, poison¬ 
ous fangs. Yet Lynette came another step toward him; 
she stooped; she put forward her hand, . . . 


TIMBER-WOLF 


i8i 


“ Thor Standing's voice rang out, filled with warn¬ 
ing, Thor began whining. 

Lynette put her hand upon the big head. Thor trem¬ 
bled. Suddenly he lay flat, belly down; the head be¬ 
tween the outstretched fore paws. He whined again. 
Standing laughed and began bridling and saddling his 
horse. Thor jumped up and frisked about his master; 
Standing fondled him, as he had fondled Daylight, by 
striking him resoundingly. 

‘^To play safe,^’ he flung over his shoulder at Lynette,' 
‘‘better come here.’’ 

When she had drawn close Standing stooped and pat¬ 
ted the dog’s head. Then, while Thor, snarling, looked 
on, he put out his hand and placed it for a fleeting in¬ 
stant upon Lynette’s shoulder. 

“Good dog,” he said quietly. 

Then he caught up her hand and placed it on Thor’s 
head, cupped under his own. 

“ Good dog,” he said again. And then he told Lynette 
to call the dog. She did so, saying in an uncertain 
voice: 

“Here, Thor! . . . Come here, Thor!” 

“Thor!” cried Standing commandingly. “Good 
dog! ” 

Thor trembled, but he went to her. He allowed her 
to pat him. Then, with a suddenness which startled 
her, he shot out a red tongue to lick her hand. Stand¬ 
ing burst into sudden pleased laughter. 

“Your friend ... so long as I don’t set him on you!” 
he cried out. 

“You are a beast . . . who herd with beasts!” she 
said, shuddering. 

He laughed again and finished drawing tight cinch 
and strapping latigo. He tied his small pack at the 
strings behind the saddle and said briefly: 


i 82 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Since we’re in a hurry, suppose you ride while I 
■walk alongside? We’ll make better time that way.” 

She was ashamed of herself—that she should have 
been afraid of a dog! Now she was Lynette again, 
quick and capable and confident. He v/as going to lend 
her a hand to mount; she forestalled him and went up 
into the saddle like a flash. It was in her thought to 
take him by surprise; to give Daylight his head and 
race away out of sight among the pines. . . . 

But he was scarcely less quick; his hand shot out, 
catching Daylight’s reins; he unwound the chain from 
about his middle and snapped the catch into the horse’s 
bit. . . . And she began to analyze, thinking: 

‘‘He took time to explain why he let me ride while 
he walked! He is less beast and brute than he knows 
himself! . . . Less beast and brute than . . . simple 
humbug!” And, before they had gone ten steps, he 
heard her humming the air which she had sung at break¬ 
fast time. 

“Damn it,” he muttered under his breath, not for her 
to hear. “ The little devil . . . she’s taking advantage 
of me, every advantage. She. . . . Just the same . . . 
just the same. . . .” 

And he, too, was wondering about Babe Deveril! 

“We go this way,” he said. “I’ll lead; you follow.” 

“I know!” cried Lynette; she could not hold the 
words back. “Toward Buck Valley and Big Bear 
Creek . . . and Mexicali Joe. And . . .” 

“And what?” he demanded, snatching at her chain, 
sensing that something of import lay behind the 
abruptly checked words. 

She only laughed at him. 


CHAPTER XIV 


Another day of wilderness wandering. A cabin 
sighted, but so far away that it was merely a vague dot 
upon a distant ridge; miner’s shack or sheepman’s or 
wood-cutter’s? Housing an occupant or deserted for 
years? No smoke from the rock chimney; no sign of 
any human being near it.. And all view of it so soon 
lost! . . . And, afterward, no other human habita¬ 
tion of any kind; no road man-made; only trees and 
rocks, gorges and ridges and brush, and a winding way 
to be chosen between them. With, always, Bruce Stand¬ 
ing driving on and on, relentlessly on, ever deeper into 
the wilderness. 

A day of life like a leaf torn out of the book of hell 
for Lynette. He did not speak to her as they went on 
from dawn to noon and from noon until afternoon shad¬ 
ows gathered; he did not so much as turn his eyes full 
upon her own; for the most part he seemed altogether 
forgetful of the fact that, besides himself, there was 
another of his species in all the wide sweep of this land 
of mighty solitudes. For his dog, Thor, he had a kindly 
though rough-spoken word now and then; for his horse 
a word or a rude pat upon the shoulder or hip; for her 
nothing but his utter, unruffled silence. ... At times 
she hummed little snatches of gay tunes, hoping to irri¬ 
tate him; at times she strove for an aloofness to match 
his own. Countless times she looked over her shoulder, 
looking for Babe Deveril. And so the day, a long day, 
went by until at last it was late afternoon. 

^‘Here we stop,” said Standing abruptly. ^^Get 
down.” 

183 


184 


TIMBER-WOLF 


He would seem to have all advantage over her; yet 
she understood that in one way, and in one way only, 
could she rob him of his advantage, and that was by 
giving him swift and cheerful obedience. So she slipped 
out of the saddle on the instant, giving him for answer 
only the light gay words: 

“Oh, it is beautiful here!’^ . . . 

It was beautiful. ... He glared at her and led his 
horse away to unsaddle; his big dog, Thor, had trotted 
along at Daylight’s heels all day and now slumped down, 
ears erect and suspicious, while he watched his master 
and made certain of never losing sight for a second of 
his master’s new companion, whom he tolerated but 
did not trust. Lynette, stiff from so many hours in the 
saddle, looked about her. They were in the upper, 
brief space of a valley; above reared the mountains 
steeply, rugged slopes with pines here and there, with 
more open spaces and tumbled boulders. The valley 
itself was a pretty, pleasant place, soft in short green 
grass, flower-dotted, smoothly curving down into the 
more open level lands below. Yet here was no proper 
place to pitch camp, especially at so early an hour when 
it was allowed to seek further; it was too open, it would 
be unsheltered and cold; there was no water. . . . 

“Come on!” 

She started and turned again toward Standing. He 
had slung his small pack across his shoulders and was 
going on. She looked forward toward the ridge, which 
he faced; it rose sheer and forbidding. And she saw 
that his face was white and drawn; she wondered quickly 
how sorely his wound hurt him. 

“Brute?” He could have been far more brutal to 
her. ... He was dead-tired, white-faced; he had 
fought hard last night, scorning the advantage of an 
armed man against an unarmed; he had not harmed a 


TIMBER-WOLF 


185- 

hair of her head! Almost . . . almost it lay within her 
to whisper ^Toor fellow!” And if only Bruce Standing 
could have known that! . . . 

He led the way. She followed, since there was noth¬ 
ing else to think of doing. 

They climbed steadily upward out of this narrow 
green valley, finding a steep but open way among the 
trees. Now and then they paused briefly to breathe, and 
Lynette, looking back, saw more and more of the long, 
winding valley, as it revealed itself to her from new van¬ 
tage points. Far away she caught the glint of the sun¬ 
light upon a little wandering creek. They went on, and 
came to the crest of the ridge, in full sunshine now; 
Standing led an unhesitating way through a natural 
pass, and down on the other side, into shadows of a thick 
grove; through thickets; they splashed across a creek, a 
thin line of clear, cool water slipping through mountain 
willows, a tributary of the larger stream in the valley 
below. Down here it was almost dark. But twenty 
minutes later, climbing another slope where the larger 
timber stood widely spaced, they came again into the 
full sunshine. . . . Lynette began to wonder why he 
had left his horse so far back; how far did the silent, 
tireless man mean to walk? Also, she began to wel¬ 
come the coming night with an eagerness which she was 
at all pains to conceal from him; he was always ten 
steps ahead of her; if he walked on another half-hour, 
she began to hope that they would come into a place of 
shadows and clumps of trees among which she might 
dare make the attempt for escape which had been denied 
her all day. . . . 

They came into a little upland flat, well watered, 
emerald-carpeted with tender grass, shot through with 
lingering flowers and studded with magnificent trees; it 
seemed the very heart of the great wilderness; here was 


i86 


TIMBER-WOLF 


such glorious forest land as Lynette had never seen and 
did not know existed in all the broad scope of the great 
Southwest mountain country. She looked upward. 
Dark branches towered into the sky, the tips still shot 
through with soft summer light. She heard the gush of 
water—the tumble and splash and fall of water. Some¬ 
where above, at the upper end of the flat, where a dark 
ravine was an ebon-shadow-filled gash through the hills, 
was a waterfall. She could not see it, but its musical 
waters proclaimed it through the still air. She looked 
swiftly down the other way; there it was growing dark. 
She glanced hurriedly at Standing. And he, as though 
he had read her thought, stopped and turned and, be¬ 
fore she could stir, was at her side. 

After that, with never a word, they went on, deeper 
into this shadowy realm of big trees. He watched her 
at every step. Fury filled her heart, but with com¬ 
pressed lips she maintained a silence like his own. Thor 
trotted along with them, now in front of his master, as 
though this were a way he had travelled before and 
knew well, now questing far afield, now in the rear, 
eying liis master’s captive and setting his dog’s brains 
to tlie riddle. 

Before they had walked another ten minutes, Stand¬ 
ing threw down his pack and said abruptly: 

“This is as far as we go.” 

She sat down, her back to a tree, her face averted 
from him. She was very tired and now she could have 
put her face into her hands and cried from very weari¬ 
ness. But instead she caught her lip up between her 
teeth and hid her face from him and ignored him. But 
in her heart she was wondering; had he travelled all day 
long and then this far from the spot where he had re¬ 
leased his horse, just to pitch camp in a clump of trees ? 
Was this the spot toward which he had striven on so 


TIMBER-WOLF 


187 

stubbornly since daylight ? Where was he going ? Why ? 
Old queries and doubts rushed back upon her. . . . 
She was vaguely grateful that they were questions which 
he and not she had to answer; that responsibilities were 
his instead of hers. She was tired enough to lie down 
where she was and cease to care what happened. . . . 
It was not as yet pitch-dark; the sun was not down on 
the heights. But here, among the tall pines, in this hol¬ 
low, the shadows were thick; nothing stood out in detail 
to her slowly closing eyes; here was a place of black 
blots, distorted glooms, the weird formless outriders of 
the night. . . . She had not the remotest suspicion 
that, where she had slumped down, she was almost at 
the door of a cabin. 

Rather, it would have been surprising had she known. 
For surely there was never cabin like this hermit camp 
of Bruce Standing's! Two sky-scraping pines stood 
close together; between them was the door, framed by 
their own straight trunks. Smaller trees grew about 
the ancient parents; these hid the walls which to escape 
notice required little enough hiding at any time; a man 
might have passed here within a few yards at noonday 
and not noticed all this which Lynette failed to see in 
the dusk. For the walls of the tiny cabin were of rough 
logs from which the bark had never been stripped, walls 
which blended so perfectly with the greater note struck 
by the woodland that they failed to draw the eye; the 
chimney, of loose-piled rocks, was viewless at this time 
of day behind the tree trunks and inconspicuous at any 
time. And low, over the flat roof drooped the conceal¬ 
ing branches of the trees. Of all this Lynette glimpsed 
nothing until Timber-Wolf said, looking down at her: 

'*When all the tavern is prepared within, 

Why nods the drowsy worshipper outside?” 


i88 


TIMBER-WOLF 


She had striven in one way and another since she had 
had her first view of him, axe in hand, for a clew to the 
real Bruce Standing. Now, again, he set her jaded facul¬ 
ties to work: Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf, and man of 
violence, quoting poetry to her! And at such a mo¬ 
ment and under such circumstances! . . . It is not 
merely the feminine soul which is indeterminable, mys¬ 
tifying, intriguing into the ultimate bournes of specula¬ 
tion; rather the human soul. . . . 

‘‘I don’t fancy guessing riddles this evening,” she 
told him. ‘‘All that I can think of by way of repartee 
is: ‘What meanest thou. Sir Tent-maker?’” 

She thought that she heard him stifle a chuckle! 

But, in this thickening gloom and through those heavy 
shadows which lay across her soul in an hour of doubt- 
ings and uncertainties, she could be certain of nothing. 
. . . He was saying merely: 

“If you’re not clean done in, I’d suggest you walk 
three steps into my cabin. On the other hand, if you 
can’t make it. I’ll pick you up and carry you in!” 

At that she sprang to her feet; through the gathering 
dark he could feel the burning look in her eyes. 

Then, groping mentally and physically, it was given 
to her to understand. For already he stood upon the 
rude threshold. She followed after him. 

She gasped, astonished, when she realized that al¬ 
ready, in so few steps, she had passed into the embra¬ 
sure of four walls 1 Sturdy walls; walls rude and un¬ 
beautiful, but rising stalwart bulwarks against the cold 
of night mountain air. He, a blurred, gigantic form in 
the dusk, was before her; his wolfish dog was at her 
heels. She heard the scratch, she saw the blue and yel¬ 
low spurt of a sulphur match. His form suddenly 
loomed larger, leaped into grotesque giganticness; the 
tiny room sprang waveringly out of darkness into the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


189 

unreality of half-light; he found a candle; a steady 
golden flame sent the shadows racing into limbo; she 
looked about her wonderingly. . . . 

A room, bound in rough logs; a hastily, roughly hewn 
log set on other logs, offering its surly service as table; 
a stump which obviously made pretense at being a 
stool; a bunk against a wall, thick-padded with the tips 
from pines; a tin cup, a tin plate, an imitation of a box 
against a wall. And, hanging over a pole . . . her first 
certainty that Bruce Standing, though animal as she 
named him in her heart, was a clean animal . . . two 
or three blankets which, on last leaving this hut of his, 
he had stretched to air. ... A primitive room, and 
yet clean. And, across from the narrow bunk, a deep, 
wide-mouthed fireplace made of big rocks. . . . He 
himself must have made that fireplace, for what other 
man could have lifted those rocks into place ? 

I’m hungry,” said Standing. “ As hungry as a 
bear.” 

Already she was sitting on the edge of the bunk. She 
expected to hear for his next words: Get me my dinner.” 
But, instead, he said, his voice harsher than she had 
ever heard it before: 

‘‘And that’s why I’m cooking for myself instead of 
making you do it! I don’t want you to get it into your 
head it’s because I’m getting sorry for you. . . .” 

She lay back, unanswering, and watched him. And 
presently, though not for him to see, a little smile 
touched her lips and for a short instant lighted her big 
gray eyes. . . . And in her heart she said: “He is so 
obvious, with all his thinking that he is a man whom a 
girl cannot see through! All day he has made me ride, 
while he walked! He said that that was to make bet¬ 
ter time! And, with every opportunity to harm me, he 
has not harmed a hair of my head! He has not even 


TIMBER-WOLF 


190 

touched me with his big, blundering hands! . . . And 
he looks white and sick from his hurt. . . 

He rummaged in a corner; he made a fire in his fire¬ 
place; he ripped open a couple of cans and set coffee to 
boil in a battered pot as black as an African negro. 
Suddenly Lynette, who had been silent a long wliile, 
exclaimed: 

know now! We are still on your land. This is 
the very cabin where, six years ago, you robbed Babe 
Deveril of three thousand dollars!” 

^^No!” he said. You have guessed wrong!” And 
then: ‘‘So your little friend, Baby Devil, told you many 
a tale about my wickedness?” 

“He told me that one.” 

“And did he tell you the sequel? How I squared 
with him?” 

So he wanted her to think well of him! She made 
herself comfortable, leaning back against the wall. 

“Have you the vaguest inkling of the difference be¬ 
tween right and wrong, Bruce Standing?” she asked him 
impudently. 

He laughed at her—become suddenly harsh. 

“Come,” he said, “it is time for food. And then, 
for a man who does not break his word, blow high, blow 
low, to keep an appointment.” 

With that conversation ceased. He drove Thor into 
a corner, and with a word and a glance made the dog 
lie down. He boiled his coffee and set a hurried meal; 
he caught up a tin plate and brought it to Lynette. 
She was about to thank him when she saw how he was 
planning to serve a tin platter like hers to his dog; then 
she could have screamed at him in nerve-pent-up anger. 

The three—master, captive, and dog—ate their late 
dinners while the candle flame, pale yellow with its 
bluish centre, swayed gently in the mild draft of air 


TIMBER-WOLF 


191 

through the open door. Windows there were none, 
saving the one square aperture over the bunk, boarded 
up now. 

‘‘What about Jim Taggart said Standing brusquely 
out of a long silence toward the end of which the weary 
girl was near dozing. “What do you know about 
him ? Did he overhaul Mexicali Joe after all 

She looked at him steadily; suddenly she was glad 
when a pine branch in the fireplace, full of pitch, flared 
up so that he must have seen her face more clearly than 
he could have done by mere pale candle-light; she wanted 
him to see it and read something of the defiance which 
she meant to offer him. 

“So, after all, you have your engagement with Mexi¬ 
cali Joe ? It was for that that you set him free ? That 
you, instead of others, might steal his golden secret!’’ 

“Then you won’t answer, girl? You, whom I could 
crush between thumb and finger, refuse to answer me ?” 

“Yes I” she cried out at him. “Yes 11 am not afraid 
of you, Bruce Standing 1 ” 

“Not afraid?” He glared at her, his flashing blue 
eyes full of threat. Then he laughed contemptuously, 
saying: “And yet, were I minded to, I could in a second 
have you on your knees, begging, pleading . . 

“But you won’t!” she dared fling at him. “And 
that is why I am not afraid!” 

“I am not so sure!” he muttered. “Not so sure. Be¬ 
fore morning, girl, you may come to know what fear is! ” 

She tried to toss back her fearless laughter, but at 
that look of his and at that stem tone of his voice her 
laughter caught in her throat. 

“You’ve got nerve,” he said grudgingly. “More 
nerve than I thought any girl could have . . . since it’s 
far and away more than most men have. But just the 
same there’s one thing you are afraid of! I’ve seen it a 


192 


TIMBER-WOLF 


dozen times to-day, no matter how well you thought 
you hid it! You are afraid to death of old Thor, 
there 1 ’’ 

She shivered; she laid a quick command upon her 
muscles as upon her spirit, but they failed her; she tried 
to tell herself and to show him through her bearing, head 
up, eyes steady, that it was only fatigue and the growing 
chill of the coming night that put that tremor upon her. 
But he laughed at her and called his big dog to him and 
said heavily: 

“Watch her, Thor 1 Watch her 

Thor growled, a growl coming from deep down in the 
powerful throat; the red eyes grew hot; bristles stood up 
along neck and back; there came the gleam of the wolf¬ 
ish teeth. She shrank back against the wall. 

“I have my appointment! ... In an hour I must 
^o. I give you your choice of coming along with me, 
in leash! or of staying here, with only Thor to guard, 
and taking your chances with him! Which is it?” 

And she cried quickly: 

“I’ll go with you!” And then, lest he should think 
that he had triumphed, she added swiftly: “For I, too, 
am interested in Mexicali Joe!” 

He caught down the blankets which had hung airing 
since last he came here and tossed two of them to the 
bunk where she half lay; the third he folded and placed 
on the floor, stretching out his own great bulk upon it, 
his shoulders against the wall. He found his pipe, filled 
and lighted it, and lay staring into the fire. . . . 

And she, drawing a blanket over her knees, crouched, 
looking into the same dancing flames, overwhelmed for 
the moment by a total sense-engulfing feeling of un¬ 
reality. Could all of this which had happened, which 
was still happening, be an actual experience for her, 
Lynette Brooke ? More did it resemble a long-drawn- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


193 


out ugly dream than actuality! To be here to-night, so 
far from the world, her own world, in the heart of a 
gigantic wilderness, in a rude cabin; a giant of a man who, 
as he had said truly, might have crushed her between 
hxis powerful forefinger and thumb; a savage wolf of a 
dog watching her with unblinking eyes; another man, 
somewhere, with vengeance in his heart, following them; 
another man, clutching to his breast his golden secret, 
not far away; . . . nightmare ingredients! Did this 
man, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf as men called him, 
really know where to find Mexicali Joe ? And, when he 
found him, would he come upon Taggart and Gallup 
and that hawk-faced man whom they called Cliff 
Ship ton ? And with them would there be Babe Deveril, 
who must have gone somewhere in his mad, hungering 
hope to have a rifle in his hands ? . . . Above all else, 
was she the plaything of fate ? Or the director of fate ? 
Now it lay within the scope of her power to cry out to 
Bruce Standing: “When you find Mexicali Joe you will 
find others, no friends of yours, with him 1 With them, 
probably. Babe Deveril 1 And more than one rifle 
ready to stand between you and the Mexican 1 ” ... If 
she kept her silence, there might be bloodshed before 
morning; if she spoke her warning, she might be doubly 
arming Timber-Wolf. She grew restless; so restless that 
Thor, distrusting her, began growling. 

And Bruce Standing, regarding her fixedly, demanded 
sharply: 

“Well, what is it 

Well . . . what should she say ? Anything or noth¬ 
ing? If she kept her silence, would she in after-days 
know herself to blame for to-night’s bloodshed in that, 
keeping shut lips, she allowed him to stumble upon all 
Taggart’s crowd. 

He was eying her sharply. She must make some an- 


194 


TIMBER-WOLF 


swer, and so at last she prefaced her reply by asking him: 

“You say that we are not on your land 

“I did not say that. I said that this is not the cabin 
in which I had some years ago the pleasant experience 
of borrowing some money from Babe Deveril. He has 
never been here; has never heard of this place. No 
man other than mvself, and until now no woman ever 
came here.’^ 

“That narrow end of a valley we crossed this after¬ 
noon . . . that was the upper end of Buck Valley? 
And the creek which came next was Big Bear Creek ? 
And, right near us somewhere is Grub Stake Canon ? ’’ 

“You know the country like a map!’’ He spoke 
carelessly enough and yet was puzzled to tmdei stand 
how she knew; of course Deveril could have told her 
something of it and yet Deveril’s knowledge was re¬ 
stricted to the slim gleanings of one short excuis3ion of 
years ago, and he did not believe that even Deveril had 
ever heard of Grub Stake Canon. 

“And,” she ran on swiftly, “you were to meet Mexi¬ 
cali Joe to-night at that other cabin of yours ? Is that 
it?” 

“Witch, are you? Picker of thoughts from men’s 
brains ? ” He laughed shortly and got to his feet. 

And so you elect to go along and see what happens ? 
Rather than rest here with Thor to keep you com¬ 
pany ? ” 

She, too, rose swiftly. 

“Yes!” 

He took up his rifle, caught her hand and extinguished 
the candle. 

“Down, Thor, old boy,” he said as he might have 
spoken to a man, without raising liis voice. “Wait for 
me. Good dog, Thor.” 

Thor whined, but Lynette heard the sound he made in 


TIMBER-WOLF 


195 


lying down obediently; heard the thumping of his tail 
as he whined again. Standing began leading the way 
through the dark among the big trees, his fingers about 
her wrist. . . . She wondered how far they must go; 
suddenly as her great weariness bore down upon her 
spirit that was become the greatest of all considera¬ 
tions; greater, even, than what they should find at the 
end of their walk. Almost she regretted not having re¬ 
mained in the cabin . . . with Thor. 

Standing, despite the dark and the uneven ground 
underfoot, seemed to have no difficulty in finding his 
way; he walked swiftly; she could sense his eager impa¬ 
tience. She began wondering listlessly if he were late 
to his appointment. . . . 

She had faint idea how far they had gone, a mile or 
two miles or but half a mile, a weary time of heavily 
dragging footsteps, when suddenly the silence was broken 
by men’s voices. Far away, dimmed and all but utterly 
hidden by the interval of forest, was a vague glow of 
light. Standing came to a dead stop; she stumbled 
against him. There came, throbbing through the night, 
a man’s scream. Standing stiffened; she felt a tremor 
run through his big body. A voice again, an evil voice 
in evil laughter; a deeper voice, too far away for the 
words to carry any meaning, not too far for the voice 
itself to be recognized by a man who hated it. 

“Taggart and Young Gallup,” Standing muttered. 
“They’ve got Joe! They’d cut his throat for ten 
cents! . . . Look here; what do you know about all 
this?” 

She answered hurriedly; that thin scream still echoed 
in her ears; she remembered only too vividly Taggart’s 
treatment of Joe at the dugout and Taggart’s threats; 
she shivered, saying: 

“All I know. . . . Jim Taggart and Gallup and an- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


196 

other man caught up with Joe at his cabin; they made 
him bring them here ... to show them his gold . . . 
Taggart threatened him with torture . . .’’ 

Come! Hurry! Why in hell’s name didn’t you 
tell me ?” 

Still with her hand caught in his own he turned and 
ran, making her run with him, back to his own cabin. 
Again they heard, fainter now since the distance was 
greater, that thin cry bursting from Joe’s lips; she felt 
the hand on her own shut down, mercilessly hard. . . . 
Running, they returned to his hidden cabin. 

He went in with her; hurriedly he lighted the candle; 
the fire was almost out. Wondering, she sank down 
upon the bunk. 

“Down, Thor,” he commanded; he made the dog lie 
again across the threshold. “Watch her, Thor!” Thor 
growled; the red eyes watched her. 

“Don’t you move from that bunk until I get back!” 
Standing told her sternly. 

He ran out of the cabin. She heard him breaking 
through brush, going the shortest, straightest way down 
toward the spot from which voices had come up to them. 
Thor growled. She looked at the dog, fascinated with 
fear of him. The big head was down now, resting be¬ 
tween the big fore paws; the unwinking eyes were on 
her. . . . She lay back on the bunk, staring up at the 
smoke-blackened rafters. 

It was very quiet. No longer could she hear the sound 
of Timber-Wolf’s running. . . . He, one man, pitting 
himself in blazing anger against at least three men, . . . 
perhaps four I . . . What if he were killedLeaving 
her here, under the relentless guard of Thor ? She was 
taken with a long fit of shivering. Thor growled. 


CHAPTER XV 


Every experience through which Lynette Brooke 
had gone until now seemed suddenly dwarfed into insig¬ 
nificance by the present. She was so utterly wearied 
out physically that muscles all over her body, demanding 
their hour of relaxation and having that relaxation denied 
them through the nervous stress laid upon her, quivered 
piteously. Hers was that frame of mind which distorts 
and magnifies, whipping out of its true semblance all 
actual conditions or building them up into monstrous, 
grotesque shapes. She was afraid of that great, staring 
dog on the threshold; more afraid of him than she had 
ever been of any man, Thor’s master not excepted. 
For here was a fear which she could not throttle down. 
She would have sighed in content and have gone to 
sleep, her turbulent emotions quieted, if only it had been 
Bruce Standing’s hard hand on the chain denying her her 
liberty instead of a great dog lying across the door-step. 
. . . Enough here to make her clinch her teeth to hold 
back a scream of panic-swept nerves; yet this was not 
all. For still that cry, heard through the woods, rang 
in her ears; still she built up in the picture which her 
quick fancy limned the vision of Mexicali Joe at the 
mercy of merciless men; Joe, who had lied to them, hop¬ 
ing to deliver them into the hands of one greater than 
they; Joe, who at the end, with them demanding to see 
what he had to show them, must be driven to the last 
extremity to fight for time. . . . And, blurring every¬ 
thing else at times, there swept over her another pic¬ 
ture; that of Timber-Wolf, wounded and white-faced, 
stalking in that fearless way of his among them, con¬ 
fronting three armed men ... or four.? . . . and then 
man-killing. . . . They were all wolves! She shud- 

197 


TIMBER-WOLF 


198 

dered. And Thor, watching her, filled the quiet cabin 
with the sound of his low suspicious growling. 

“Thor! ” she called him, hardly above a whisper. Her 
lips were dry. “ Good old Thor! 

His throaty rumble of a growl, telling her of his dis¬ 
trust as eloquently as it could have done had Thor 
the words of man at his command, was her answer. 

“Thor!’’ She called him again, her voice soft, 
pleading, coaxing. Then she lifted herself a few inches 
on her elbow; like a flash Thor was up on his haunches, 
his growl became a snarl, a quick glint of his teeth show¬ 
ing, a sharp-pointed gleam of menace. 

Yet Lynette held her position, steady upon her elbow; 
she had never known a tenser moment. Her throat 
contracted with her fear; and yet she kept telling herself 
stubbornly that yonder was but a dog, a thing of only 
brute intelligence, while she had the human brain to 
oppose him with; that, some way, she could outwit him. 
So she did not lie back; to do so would, she felt, show 
Thor that she was afraid of him. She made no further 
forward movement but she held what she had been 
suffered to gain. 

And then she set herself to dominate Thor, a wolf-like 
dog. She spoke to him; but first she waited until she 
could be sure of her voice. That brute instmct of Thor’s 
would know the slightest quaver of fear when he heard 
it. She controlled herself and her voice; she made her 
tones low and soft and gentle; she kept them firm. 
She told herself: “Thor is but doing his master’s bidding 
because he loves his master! I’ll make him love me! 
He distrusts . . . I’ll make him trust instead!” And 
all the while she kept her own eyes steady upon Thor’s. 

“Thor!” she said quietly. And again: “Thor. 
Good old Thor. Good old dog!” 

. . . Thor had set her down as an enemy; his mas- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


199 


ter’s enemy; his master had commanded him: Watch 
her, Thor!” Thor’s knowledge was not wide; yet what 
he knew he did know thoroughly. And yet Thor had 
had no evidence, beyond that offered by a chain, of any 
open enmity between his master and this captive; 
master and girl had travelled all day long together and 
neither had flown at the other’s throat. More than 
that, it had been at the master’s own command this 
very morning that Thor had felt her hand upon his head; 
a hand as light as a falling leaf. And now she spoke to 
him in his master’s own words, but with such a different 
voice, calling him Thor, good old dog. . . . 

It was a soothing voice, a voice made for tender 
caresses. She spoke again and again and again. And 
she was not afraid; Thor could see no flickering sign of 
fear in her. A voice softer than had been the touch of 
her hand. 

“Thor!” she called him. And his growl was scarcely 
more growl than whine. For Thor, before Bruce Stand¬ 
ing had been gone twenty minutes, was growing uncer¬ 
tain. Lynette had had dogs of her own; she knew the 
ways of dogs, and in this she had the advantage, since 
Thor knew nothing of the ways of women nor of their 
guile. The dog was restless; his eyes, upon hers, were 
no longer so steady. Now and then Thor shook his 
head and his eyes wandered. 

“Thor,” said Lynette, and now, though her voice, as 
before, was low and gentle, there was the note of com¬ 
mand in it, “lie down!” 

There was an experiment . . . and it failed. Thor 
was on four feet in a flash; his growl was unmistakable 
now; the snarling note came back into it threateningly. 
She thought that he was going to fly at her throat. . . . 

Yet already was the lesser intelligence, though coupled 
with the greater physical power, confused. 


200 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Lynette moved slowly; she put her hands up above 
her head and stretched out her arms and yawned; Thor 
growled, but there was little threat in the growl; just 
suspicion. Again she moved slowly; close enough, in the 
restricted area embraced by the cabin walls, was the 
table; on it some morsels of food left from their dinner. 
Without rising from the bunk, she reached the tin plate; 
she took it up, all the while moving with unhastening 
slowness. Thor’s eyes followed her straying hand; 
Thor had been fed, and yet the dog’s capacity for food 
was enormous. He understood the meaning of her ges¬ 
ture; his eyes hungered. 

She dropped the plate to the floor but, before it 
struck, not three feet in front of the dog, she cried out 
sharply, her voice ringing, her command at last em¬ 
phatic: 

‘‘No, Thor! No! No, IteUyou!” 

Had she offered the dog the food she would have but 
awaked within him a new and violent distrust; he was 
not so easily to be tricked. But when she tossed before 
him something that he was slavering for, and then laid 
her command upon him to hold back, she achieved some¬ 
thing over him; he would have held back in any case, 
but now he held back at her command. 

“Watch it, Thor 1” she cried out loudly. “Watch it, 
sir!” 

The big dog stared at her; at the fallen morsels; back 
at her, plainly at loss. And then again, more sharply, 
she commanded him: 

“Watch it, Thor! . . . Lie down, Thor!” 

And Thor, though he growled, lay down. . . . And 
his wolfish eyes now were upon the plate and its spilled 
contents rather than upon her. 

“If I can but have time!” Lynette was telling herself 
excitedly. “If only I can have time ... I can make 


TIMBER-WOLF 201 

that dog do what I say to do! . . . God, give me 
time!” 


When Bruce Standing, rushing through the forest land, 
came upon them . . . Taggart and the others . . . they 
were grouped about a despairing, hopeless Mexicali Joe. 
For Mexicali Joe’s amigo, the great Timber-Wolf, in 
whom next to God he put all trust, had failed him. 
And Joe had come to the end of his tether, the end of 
lies and excuses and empty explanations. And now 
Taggart, as brutal a man as ever wore the badge of the 
law, was impatient, and meant to make an end of all 
procrastinations. It was his intention to give Mexicali 
Joe such a ^Hhird degree” as never any man had lived 
to experience before to-night. Rage, chagrin, disap¬ 
pointment, and natural, innate brutality spurred him on. 
Even Young Gallup, who was no chicken-hearted man 
at best, demurred; but Taggart cursed him off and told 
him to hold his tongue, and planned matters to his own 
liking. 

‘^Jim Taggart’s got Injun blood in him, you know,” 
muttered Gallup uneasily to Cliff Shipton ... as though 
that might explain anything. 

Even to such as Young Gallup, a man of whose hu¬ 
manity little was to be said, explanations were logical 
requirements. For Jim Taggart was at his evil worst. 
With cruelly hard fist he had knocked the little Mexi¬ 
can down; before Joe could get to his feet he booted 
him; when Joe stood, tottering, Taggart knocked him 
down again, jarring the quivering flame of life within 
him. And only at that did Jim Taggart, a man of no 
imagination but of colossal brutality, count that he was 
beginning. Then it was that Joe cried out; that his 
scream pierced through the night’s stillness; that he 
pleaded with Taggart, saying: 


202 


TIMBER-WOLF 


'‘This time, I tell you the true! I tell you ever’- 
thing. . . 

“You’re damned right you will,” shouted Taggart, 
beside himself with his long baffled rage. “When I 
get good and ready to listen. And I’m not listening 
now, you Mexico pup 1 First you go through hell, and 
then I’ll know that you tell the truth 1 Fool with me, 
would you; with me, Jim Taggart ? You-” 

Then Taggart began his third degree, listening to 
neither Joe’s pleadings nor yet to the voice of Young 
Gallup. 

The four men were in Bruce Standing’s old cabin; the 
door was wide open, since here, so far from the world, 
in the dense outer fringes of Timber-Wolf’s isolated 
wilderness kingdom, no man of them . . . saving Joe 
alone, who had now given up hope . . . had a thought 
of another human eye to see; Ship ton, at a curt word 
from Taggart, had piled the mouth of the fireplace full 
of dead-wood, for the sole sake of light, and it was hot 
in the small room. Taggart had bound the Mexican’s 
hands behind him, drawing the thong so tight that it 
cut crueUy into the flesh. . . . Taggart had knocked 
Joe down and had booted him to his heart’s content; 
the swarthy face had turned a sick white. Taggart’s 
eyes were glowing like coals raked out from hell’s own 
sulphurous fires; he was sure of the outcome, sure 
of swift success, and yet now, in pure fiendishness, 
more absorbed in his own unleashed deviltry than in the 
mere matter of raw gold, which he counted securely 
his as soon as he was ready for it. Whether or not 
Indian blood ran in his veins, elemental savagery 
did. 

Mexicali Joe, unable to rise, or in fear for his life if he 
stirred, lay on the floor, his eyes dilated with terror, 
staring up into Taggart’s convulsed face. 



TIMBER-WOLF 


203 


tell you the true!” he screamed. ^^This time, be¬ 
fore God, I tell-” 

''Shut up, you greaser-dog!” Taggart, a man of full 
measure, kicked him, and under the driving pain in¬ 
flicted by that heavy boot, Joe’s eyes flickered and 
closed, and Joe’s brain staggered upon the dizzy black 
verge of unconsciousness. Taggart saw and understood 
and pitched a dipperful of water in his face. Joe gasped 
faintly. Taggart stepped to the fireplace, and snatched 
out a blazing pine branch. 

"I’ve put my brand on more’n one treacherous dog 1” 
he jeered. "You’ll find my stock running across the 
wild places in seven States! Here’s where I plant the 
sign of the cross on you, Mexico! Right square between 
the eyes!” 

Suddenly he thrust the burning brand toward Joe’s 
forehead. Joe cried out in terror: 

"For the love of God! ...” His two hands were 
behind him, but, galvanized, he fought the pine fagot 
with his whole body. He strove to thrust it aside; he 
fought against his weakness to roll over; Taggart’s heavy 
foot was in his middle, holding him down; the burning 
branch in Taggart’s heavy hands was as steady as a 
steel rod set in concrete; Joe’s threshing panic disturbed 
it scarcely more than the wind would have done. . . . 
Another scream, shrilling through the night; the smell 
of burnt flesh; a red wound on Joe’s forehead; Taggart’s 
ugly laugh; and then suddenly, from just without the 
open doorway, a terrible shout from Bruce Standing, and 
then, in two seconds, Bruce Standing’s great bulk among 
them. 

"My God!” roared Standing, "ilfy God! . . . You, 
Jim Taggart! . . .” 

. Ship ton’s rifle stood in a corner; Ship ton, as lithe as a 
cat, leaped for it. Gallup’s was in his hand; he whipped 



204 


TIMBER-WOLF 


it to his shoulder. Taggart for one instant was stupe¬ 
fied; then he swept high above his head the smoke- 
emitting, redly glowing pine limb. Joe, weeping hys¬ 
terically, writhing on the floor, was gasping: Jesus 
MariaP'' . . . God had heard his prayers; God and 
Bruce Standing. 

But in to-night’s game of hazard it was Timber- 
Wolf who chose to shuffle, cut, and deal the cards; his 
riffe was in his hands; it required but the gentlest touch 
of his finger to send any man of them to his last repose. 
His eyes, the roving eyes of rage, were everywhere at once. 

‘‘I’d kill you, Taggart, and be glad of the chanth! 
You, too, Gallup! Drop that gun!” 

First of them all, it was Cliff Shipton who came to the 
motionless halt of shocked consternation; he lifted his 
hands, his face blanched; he tried to speak, and only 
succeeded in making the noise of air gushing through 
dry lips. Gallup stopped midway in his purpose of fir¬ 
ing, for Timber Wolf’s riffe barrel was trained square 
upon his chest; at the look in Standing’s eye and the 
timbre of his voice, Gallup’s gun fell clattering to the 
floor. Taggart mouthed and cursed, and-slowly let his 
blazing fagot sink toward the floor. 

For every man of them knew Timber-Wolf well; and 
they knew that incongruous lisping which surprised 
him and mastered his utterance only when his rage was 
of the greatest. When Timber-Wolf lisped it was be¬ 
cause such a fiery storm raged through his breast as 
to make of him a man who would kill and kill and kill 
and glory in the killing. 

“And I’d have given a million dollars to thee any 
man of you put up a fight!” he was saying harshly. 
“God, what a thet of cowardly curth! And you, Jim 
Taggart, I onth had for bunk-mate and onth thought 
a man!” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


205 


He reached out suddenly, and with his bare, open 
palm slapped Taggart's face; and Taggart staggered 
backward under the blow until his thick shoulders 
brought up against the wall with such a thud that the 
cabin shuddered under the impact. 

‘‘Get up, Joe!" growled Standing. “You're another 
yellow dog, but . . . get up and come here 1" 

Joe scrambled to his feet and came hurrying. Stand¬ 
ing kept his rifle in his right hand. Using his left stiffly, 
he got out his knife and cut the Mexican's bonds. 

“Go!" he cried savagely. “While you've got legth 
under you! And thith time keep clear, or hell take you ! 
I'm through with you . . . you make me thick! . . ." 

Mexicali Joe, with one last frightened look over his 
shoulder, fled; they heard his running feet outside. He 
was jabbering unintelligibly as he fled: Senor Caba¬ 
llero! . . . Dios! . . . those devils! ..." 

Joe was gone. Bruce Standing's work was done. He 
looked grim and implacable, a man of iron heated in 
the red-hot furnace of rage. He yearned for Taggart 
to make a move; or for Gallup. Ship ton, as a lesser cur, 
he ignored. 

They saw how white, as white as a clean sheet of 
paper, his face was; they did not fully understand why, 
since a man's face, when he is in a terrible rage, may 
whiten, as an effect of the searing emotion; they did not 
know how he had driven his wounded body all day long 
nor how sore his wound was. They could not guess 
that even now he was holding himself upright and tow¬ 
ering among them through the fierce bending of his in¬ 
domitable will. That same will he bent terribly for 
clean-cut articulation. 

“Taggart!" he said, and his voice rang as clear as 
the striking of an iron hammer upon a resounding anvil. 
“I'll tempt you to be a man such as you once were, be- 


2 o 6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


fore you went yellow clean through . . . and Ill show 
you, your self, how dirty a yellow you’ve gone! Pick up 
Young Gallup’s rifle!” 

Taggart glared at him and muttered and hesitated, 
tugged one way by hatred and the madness of wrath, 
tugged the other way by his fear of the certainty of 
death. Lights, bluish lights, flickered in Timber-Wolf’s 
eyes. He said again: 

^‘Pick up that rifle I OtheimVe, in less than ten sec- 
onds you are a dead man 1” 

Taggart’s face was red when Standing began to speak; 
ashen by the last word. Nervously and in great haste 
he stooped and caught up the gun. 

‘^You’ve got your chance, Jim Taggart! Your last 
chancel To fight it out, or say, for these men to hear: 
‘I’m a dirty yellow dog!’ If you’re game we’ll fight it 
out. I’ll give you an even break; and we’ll kill each 
other!” 

Taggart held the rifle, not lifted quite to his waist; 
his hands were rigid upon it and did not tremble. He 
was not a coward; on many an occasion, when he had 
borne his sheriff’s badge recklessly through violence, he 
had shown himself a brave man. He knew now that it 
lay within his power, if he were quick and sure, to kill 
Bruce Standing, whom he had come to hate, so that his 
hatred was like a running sore. And he knew, too, that 
killing, he would be killed. If it were any man on 
earth whom he confronted save Bruce Standing. . . . 

So he hesitated, for brave man as Jim Taggart always 
was, he was a man who did not want to die. And 
Standing laughed at him and said: 

“You’ve had your chance; you still have it. Now, 
fight it out or tuck your tail between your legs and do 
my bidding! And my bidding to you, so that I needn’t 
expect a bullet in the back when I leave you, is to smash 



TIMBER-WOLF 


207 

that rifle into flinders against the rock chimney. And 
step lively!” 

The last words came sharp and sudden, and Taggart 
started. And then, hesitating no longer, he whirled the 
rifle up by the barrel and brought it with all his might 
crashing against the fireplace; the fragments fell from 
his tingling fingers. And again Standing laughed at 
him and again commanded him, saying: 

There are two more rifles; do the same for each one I 
And remember, Jim Taggart, every time you touch a gun 
you’ve got the even break to fight it out; and every time 
you smash a gun you are saying out loud: ‘I’m a dirty 
yellow dog!’ Only make it snappy, Jim Taggart!” 

One after the other, and hastily, Jim Taggart smashed 
the butts off two rifles and jammed trigger and trigger- 
guard so that from firearms the weapons were resolved 
into the estate of so much scrap-iron and splintered wood. 

“I’ll take your two toy guns, Jim,” said Standing. 
“And remember this; at short range the man with the 
revolver has the edge! When you drag a gun out you’ve 
got your chance to come up shooting 1 Don’t overlook 
that! And remember along with it, that when you hand 
me a gun, butt-end first, you are saying aloud for the 
world to hear: ‘I’m a dirty yellow dog!’” 

“By God . . .” 

“Yes, Jim Taggart, . . . by God, you’re a dirty dog!” 

Lingeringly Taggart drew forth the heavy side-arms 
dragging at his holsters; all the while he was tempted 
almost beyond resistance to avail himself of his oppor¬ 
tunity and of that quick sure skill of his; to shoot from 
the hip, as he could do with the swiftness of a flash of 
the wrist; he could shoot and kill. And within his 
heart, knowing Bruce Standing as he did, he knew, too, 
that though he shot true to a hair line, none the less, 
Bruce Standing would kill him. ... He gave a gun 


2 o8 


TIMBER-WOLF 


into Standing’s left hand and saw it thrust into his 
belt. Then was Taggart’s time to snatch out his other 
weapon and drill that hole through the big body in front 
of him which would surely let the life run out; now was 
his chance, while for an instant one of Standing’s hands 
was busy at his belt! . . . If it had been any other man 
in the world there confronting him! Any man but 
Bruce Standing 1 Jim Taggart was near weeping. But 
he drew out his second revolver and saw it bestowed as 
its fellow had been. 

^^Four times you’ve said it, plainer than words!” 
cried Standing ringingly. ‘‘Gallup will never forget; 
and he’ll tell the tale! Shipton will remember and will 
blab! And, what’s worse for the soul of a man, Jim 
Taggart, you’ll remember to the last day you live! . . . 
And now you three can consider yourselves as so many 
mongrel curs whose back-biting teeth I’ve knocked down 
your throats for you! I’ll leave you to your growlings 
and winnings! ” 

He swung about and went out. He knew both Gallup 
and Shipton, knew them and their habits well, and knew 
that neither man had the habit of carrying a pistol. 
Further, their coats were off, and he had seen that 
neither had a holster at his belt. So he turned his back 
on them to emphasize his contempt and did not turn his 
head as he plunged into the outside night and into the 
thick dark under the trees, going back to his hidden 
cabin and Lynette and Thor. He realized that he him¬ 
self, despite a herculean physique, was near the tether’s 
end of his endurance; he realized that Lynette vras also 
heavily borne down by all that she, a girl, had gone 
through and that he had left her overlong with his wolf¬ 
ish dog. 

What he could not know was that a revolver which had 
once already shot him in the back had followed him all 


TIMBER-WOLF 


209 


these miles through the wilderness and was now lying 
on the bunk in the cabin he had just quitted; he could 
not know how, at the Gallup House after Babe Deveril 
had flung it in Taggart’s face, Lynette’s pistol had lain 
there on the floor until Taggart had been aroused to con¬ 
sciousness; nor how Gallup had picked it up, nor how 
Taggart had muttered: ‘‘Save it. Young. It may come 
in handy for evidence in court.” Gallup had stuck it 
into his pocket; he had brought it with him; he had tossed 
it down among the blankets. . . . 

Taggart stared after him with terrible eyes; Taggart 
remembered and, when he dared, flung himself across 
the room, snatching for it among the covers. Standing, 
hastening, strode on. Taggart found the weapon; he 
ran out of the cabin with it in his hand; dodged to one 
side of the open door to be out of way of the firelight. 
Standing hurried on, he had not seen Taggart; Taggart 
could scarcely see him, could but make out vaguely a 
blur where he heard heavy footfalls. ... It was all 
chance; but now no longer was Taggart himself running 
the desperate chances. He fired, one shot after another, 
until he emptied the little gun—four shots altogether; 
the hammer clicked down on the fifth, the empty shell. 

Chance, pure chance; and yet chance is ironical and 
loves its own grim jest. The first bullet, the only one 
of them all to find its target, struck Timber-Wolf. And 
it was as though this questing bit of lead were seek¬ 
ing to tread the same path blazed by its angry brother 
down at the Gallup House in Big Pine. For it, like the 
other from the same muzzle, struck him from behind; 
and it, too, struck him upon the left side, in the outer 
shoulder, not half a dozen inches from the spot where 
he had been shot before. . . . 

Standing staggered and caught his breath with a 
grunt; he lurched into a tree and stood leaning against 


N 


210 


TIMBER-WOLF 


it. For a moment he was dizzied and could not see 
clearly. Then, turning, he made out the cabin behind 
him; the bright rectangle of the door; two dark running 
forms leaping through it, gone into the gulf of the black 
night. He jerked up his rifle, holding it in one hand, 
unsupported by the other, his shoulder, the right, against 
the tree. But they were gone before he could shoot. 
He waited. He heard a breaking through brush; men 
running. They were running away! They did not 
know that they had hit him; they could not tell, and 
they were afraid of his return! He lifted his voice and 
shouted at them in the sudden grip of a terrible anger. 
He listened to the noise they made and strove to judge 
their positions and began shooting after them. He fired 
until the rifle clip was empty. Then, while awkwardly, 
with one hand, he put in a fresh clip, he listened again. 
Silence only. 

. . . He was strangely weak and uncertain; he had 
to draw his brows down with a steely effort to clear his 
thoughts. They were gone . . . they woifld not come 
back ... it was too dark to look for them. And he 
had left that girl overlong . . . and he was shot full of 
pain. A surge of anger for every surge of weakness. . . . 

He started on toward his hidden cabin and Lynette. 
He blundered into a tree. He could feel the hot blood 
down his shoulder. He began using his rifle as a man 
may use a cane, leaning on it heavily. 


CHAPTER XVI 




Bruce Standing came, weaving his way, like a drunken 
man, through the woods. He was sick; sick and weak. 
He muttered to himself constantly. Lynette was at the 
top of his thought and at the bottom; she dominated 
his whole mind. He was used through long years to 
such as Jim Taggart and their crooked ways; he was not 
used to such as Lynette Brooke, a girl like a flower and 
yet fearless. It had been his way to hold all women in 
scorn, since it had not been given unto him during the 
hard years of his life to know the finer women, the true 
women worth while, more than worth the while of a mere 
man. He had held his head high; he had mocked and 
jeered at them; he had been no man to doff his hat with 
the flattering elegance of a Babe Deveril for every fair 
face seen. So now the one thing which in his fiery and 
feverish mood galled him most was the thought of being 
seen by Lynette as a man borne down and crushed and 
made weak and sick. For most of all he hated weak¬ 
lings. 

^‘She laughed at me . . . damn her,’^ he muttered. 
And, as an afterthought: ‘‘She shot me in the back, 
after the fashion of her treacherous sex!’^ 

He had driven himself harder all day long than any 
sane man, wounded, should have thought of doing. 
Now the thought, working its way uppermost through 
the fomenting confusion of teeming thoughts, was: 
“I’ll let her go. I’ll be rid of her.” For already, deep 
down in the depths of his heart, he knew that already a 
girl, a girl whom he despised and had meant to pay in 
full for her wickedness, had intrigued him; she had flung 


2II 


212 


TIMBER-WOLF 


her defiant fearlessness into his face; she had kept a 
lifted head and straightforward eyes; and . . . those 
eyes of Lynette Brooke! Deep, fathomless, gray, ten¬ 
der, alluring, the eyes of the one woman for each man! 
Almost he could have forgotten, not merely forgiven, 
her greater fault of laughing at his infirmity; if only 
she had not been of the species, like Jim Taggart’s, to 
shoot a man in the back. 

He meant to let her go free and he had his own reasons 
for his change of front. Though she had laughed and 
galled him, though she had sunk to a cowardly act and 
shot him when he was not looking, at least she was not 
the coward which he had counted upon finding her; he 
gave credit where credit was due. He had humiliated 
her sufficiently, dragging her after him, humbling a 
spirit as proud as his own, making her his handmaiden, 
calling her his slave. That was one thing. And another, 
befogged as it was, was even clearer: In letting her go, 
in being rid for all time of her and the lure of her eyes, he 
was protecting himself, Bruce Standing, and none other! 
. . . Fearless, he honored her for that. And yet a 
treacherous she-animal; so he wanted no more of her, 
no more of the look of her, the fragrance of her, the 
pressure of her upon his own spirit. He held himself 
a man; a man he meant to remain. And, for the first 
time in all his life he was a little afraid. . . . 

And then, just at the moment when it would have 
been better for them both if he had not come ... or 
when it was best that he should come . . . these are 
questions and the answers of all questions fate holds 
in her lap, hidden by the films of the future ... he 
came staggering up to the door of the hidden cabin. 
And, at the sight of her, he pulled himself up, stiffening, 
as taut as a bowstring the instant that the arrow thrills 
to the command to speed. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


213 


There, in the doorway framed by the two big-boled 
pines she stood, vividly outlined by the firelight from 
within the cabin, superbly, gloriously feminine, her own 
slender soft loveliness thrown into tremendous contrast 
by the figure at her side, the figure of old Thor on whose 
head her hand rested as light as a fallen leaf! Her 
hand on Thor's head! She and Thor standing side by 
side, her hand on his head. . . . 

Sudden rage flared up in Timber-Wolf’s heart; he 
gripped his rifle in both hands, contemptuously ignor¬ 
ing the pains which shot through his left shoulder; at 
that moment he could have thanked God for excuse 
enough to shoot her dead. She had seduced the loyalty 
and trustworthiness of Thor; she had done that! If a 
man like Standing could not trust his dog, when that 
dog was old Thor, then where on this green earth could 
he plant his trust ? 

^‘Back!” he stormed at her. “Back!” 

She was poised for flight. He came at the instant of 
her victory over the brute intelligence of a dog, at the 
moment of her high hopes, when her heart hot in re¬ 
bellion throbbed with triumph. She, too, at that mo¬ 
ment, could she have commanded the lightnings, would 
have stricken him dead. Her hatred of him reached 
in a flash such heights as it had never aspired to before. 

Back ? He commanded her to turn back ? Shouted 
his dictates at her in that first moment when she sensed 
escape and freedom and victory over him who had been 
victor long enough? Back? Not now; not though he 
flourished his rifle, threatening her with that while he 
shouted angrily at her. Briefly the sight of him had 
unnerved her, had created within her an utter powerless¬ 
ness to move hand or foot. But before he could shout 
“Back!” the second time defiance, like a flood of fire, 
broke along her veins, warming her from head to foot; 


214 


TIMBER-WOLF 


she sprang out from the area of light at the cabin door 
and, running more swiftly than Bruce Standing had 
deemed any girl could ever run, she sped away among 
the trees. . . . 

A moment ago he had but the one firm intention: To 
set her free and be rid of her for all time. Now, not ten 
seconds after holding that purpose, he was rushing after 
her, forgetful of everything, his wounds and sick weari¬ 
ness, except his one determination to drag her back! 
He was angry; in his anger, not admitting to himself 
the true explanation, he felt that he must blame her for 
a third crime . . . she had trifled with the integrity of 
his dog’s loyalty . . . she had corrupted old Thor’s 
sturdy honesty. . . . 

She ran like a deer. The moment that she broke into 
headlong flight that very act released within her a full 
tide of fright; it became a panic like that of soldiers once 
they have thrown down their arms and plunged into the 
delirium of disordered retreat. She ran as she had never 
done before, even when she and Babe Deveril had fled 
through the night. And Bruce Standing would never 
have come up with her that night had it not been that 
in the dark she fell, stumbling over the low mound left 
to mark the place where an ancient log had disintegrated. 
As she floundered to her feet she felt his hand on her 
shoulder. She screamed, she struck at him. . . . 

He caught her two hands as he had done once before; 
she could have no inkling of the tremendous call he put 
upon himself, body and will; she could hear his heavy, 
labored breathing, but she, too, was breathing in gasps. 
She could see neither the whiteness of his face nor yet 
the blood soaking his shirt. He did not speak. He was 
not thinking clearly. He merely said within himself: 
“I got her!” That was everything. Until, as they 
came again into the outward-pouring firelight in front of 


TIMBER-WOLF 


215 

the cabin door, he wondered somewhat uneasily: What 
am I going to do with her ? 

Lynette, panting and piteously shaken, dropped down 
on the edge of the bunk, overborne by disaster, hope¬ 
less, her face in her hands; she was fighting with herself 
against a burst of tears. Thus she did not see Bruce 
Standing as he stood at the threshold, looking at her. 
She heard his step; it shufiied and was uncertain, but she 
did not at the moment mark this. She heard a whine 
from old Thor, a Thor perplexed and ill at ease. 

. . . Suddenly she thought: ‘^He hasn’t moved; he 
hasn’t spoken!” She dropped her hands then and 
looked up swiftly. And, thus, she surprised a queer look 
in his eyes; his own thoughts were all chaotic and yet 
there was beginning to burn one steady thought among 
them like one bright flame in a whirl of smoke. He 
had closed the door when they came in; he had sat 
down upon the up-ended log which served here as a 
chair; Thor’s head was on the master’s knee and ab¬ 
sently Standing’s hand was stroking it. He had dropped 
his rifle outside when he started to run after her; he 
had not stopped to look for it as they came in. She 
saw that a revolver was half in and half out of his 
pocket. . . . Then she marked, with a start, the dead- 
white of his face and the way his left arm hung limp, 
and the red stain on his wrist and the back of his hand 
where the blood had run down his sleeve. Her first 
thought was of his old wound and how he was not the 
man to give a wound a chance to heal, but rather would 
break it open again and again through his violence. 
Then she recalled what, during these last few min¬ 
utes she had forgotten—the shots which she had heard 
a little while ago. And she knew that, though he sat 
upright and stared at her with the old look again in his 
eyes, he had been shot the second time. 


2i6 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“I brought you back, girl,’’ he said at last, and she 
knew that he was bending a vast resource of will to keep 
his tone clear and steady, “not because I mean to keep 
you any longer . . . but just to show you that with all 
the tricks of your sex you can take no step that I do 
not tell you to take! Now, I’ve the idea that I’d like 
best to be alone. You can go.” 

In a flash she jumped to her feet; she would scarcely 
credit her ears, and yet one look at the man told her 
reassuringly that he was in earnest. 

“I don’t know where you’ll go,” he said. “And I 
don’t care. But I can tell you you’ll find some good 
men and true, men of your own kind, since they shoot 
in the back, down below my other cabin; Taggart and 
Gallup and Ship ton. ... No, your friend Baby Devil 
isn’t there 1 And Mexicali Joe has skipped out. If you 
like to take your chances with those birds. . . .” He 
jerked out the revolver which recently had been Tag¬ 
gart’s and tossed it to the bunk. “You can take that 
along, if you like.” 

She flushed up, her face as hot as fire, as he jeered at 
her, saying: “Men of your own kind, since they shoot in 
the back!” . . . She could come close to an accurate 
guess of what had happened; since Mexicali Joe was gone 
it must be that Standing had set him free; since Stand¬ 
ing returned with a fresh wound, it must be that Tag¬ 
gart or one of his crowd had shot him in the back. . . . 

She had not meant to speak, but now she cried out 
hotly: 

“I did not shoot you! You didn’t see . . . if you 
had seen you would know. My pistol lay on the table 
. . . the window was open . . . some one reached in 
and picked it up and shot you ... I was frightened, 
and when the pistol was dropped back to the table, I 
caught it up. ...” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


217 


His eyes grew brilliant with the intensity of the look 
he turned upon her. . . . But his brain was reeling, 
his weakness overpowered him ... he was set with all 
the steel of his character against showing before her 
the first sign of weakness. . . . 

“Liar!’’ he flung at her. “To lie about it.. . . 
that’s worse than the shot. . . .” 

He leaned back against the wall. “You’re free now,” 
he said. “I would to God I had never seen you!” 

For answer she flung her bright laughter back at him; 
defiant, angry, bitter laughter. She caught up the heavy 
revolver he had thrown to her. 

“I could shoot you now . . . with no one to see . . .” 

His own laughter, hard and ugly, answered while he 
found the strength to say sternly: 

“But with me looking you straight in the eyes . . . 
you’d lose your nerve at that!” 

She flung the weapon down to the floor, scorning any 
gift of his. Without another word, with never another 
glance toward him, she passed to the door, jerked it 
open and went out. 

He sat staring into the fire. Thor began sniffing at 
the limp hand. Standing got to his feet; the fire was 
dying down and a sudden shiver of cold prompted 
him to pile on fresh fuel. He kicked Taggart’s revolver 
viciously out of his way. He was going to the fire¬ 
place, but in doing so passed the bunk. He sat down 
a moment, wiping the sweat from his forehead . . . cold 
and sweating at the same time. He lay back, flat on 
his back, and shut his eyes. He wondered vaguely how 
much blood he had lost coming up through the woods 
from the lower cabin where he had been shot; how much 
blood he had lost while he ran like a madman after that 
girl. . . . His eyes were shut doggedly tight and yet 
it seemed to his dizzied senses as though he could feel 


2i8 


TIMBER-WOLF 


the look of her eyes, bending over him. . . . Now, 
that was a strange thing. . . . Never once had she 
given him a look from those eyes of hers to show a single 
spasm of fear. . . . Fearless ? She, a girl ? Did fear¬ 
lessness and cowardice blend, then, that the incompre¬ 
hensible result might be known as woman ? For it was 
the supreme stroke of cowardice to shoot a man in the 
back. And yet . . . she had said: did not shoot 

you!’’ While she spoke, he had believed! . . . He lay 
jeering at himself. . . . And all the while, as in a vision, 
he saw a pair of big gray eyes, soft and tender and 
alluring, bending over him. . . . 

“There’s just one thing in the world,” muttered Bruce 
Standing aloud, as a man may do when hard driven by 
perplexity and safe in solitary isolation from other ears 
than his own, “that I’d give everything to know! 
To know for sure! . . . Just one thing . . 


CHAPTER XVII 


Lynette, running like one blind out into the dark 
silent forest land, her own soul storm-tossed, stopped 
with sudden abruptness, staring about her, striving to see 
what lay before her, about her. Free! As free as the 
wind, to roam where she listed. And alone! Alone 
with the wilderness for the first moment since she had 
fled the menace yelping at her heels in Big Pine. Alone. 

And walled about by the wildest and most impene¬ 
trably blackly dark solitudes. She had but the one im¬ 
pulse; to flee from this man whose fellows termed him a 
wolf; but the one clear thought, that she must hasten in 
search of the very man from whom originally she had 
fled, Jim Taggart. For, since Bruce Standing had not 
been killed by that shot fired in her room at the Gallup 
House, she, like Babe Deveril, was no longer threatened 
with the most serious charge of murder. Let Taggart 
place her imder arrest; let him take her back into the 
region of towns and stages and lamp-lit homes; let him 
accuse her. Suddenly it seemed to her, wearied with 
endless exertion and privation and nervous tension, that 
there could be no peace greater than that of being taken 
back and placed in custody in Big Pine 1 

Now she had to guide her but a general, a very vague, 
sense of direction. It was so absolutely dark! There 
were stars, but they seemed little sparks of cold distant 
light, blurred and almost lost beyond the tops of the 
pines. Standing had led her after him, on his way to 
his lower cabin, down the gentle slope. Yes; she knew 
the general direction. And the distance ? She had lit¬ 
tle impression of the distance between these two aloof 

219 


220 


TIMBER-WOLF 


lairs of Timber-Wolf; half a mile or two miles, she did 
not know. She would go on and on, seeking a way 
among the trees; on and on and on, stumbling in the 
dark. Then, after a while, she would call; call and call 
again, praying that Taggart and the others were lurking 
somewhere within ear-shot; that they would hear and 
come to her . . . and place her under arrest! And she 
wondered, as she had done so many a time to-day, where 
was Babe Deveril ? Was he near ? Would he, by any 
chance, hear her ? Would he, too, come to her ? And, 
then, what? 

She began hastening on; to be farther from him, 
though that meant to come at every step nearer Jim 
Taggart and Young Gallup and that other man with 
the hawk face. She could not be absolutely certain 
that the direction she set her course by would ever lead 
her to the lower cabin; but on one point she was assured: 
at every step she was getting farther from wolf-man 
and wolf-dog. What a brute, what a beast he was! 
And yet . . . and yet. . . . There swept across her, like 
a clean, cold wind out of the north, a sudden apprecia¬ 
tion of those finer qualities of manhood which his nature 
and his fate had allowed to dwell on in that anomaly, 
Bruce Standing. His absolute honesty, itself like a 
north wind, was not to be gainsaid even by his bitterest 
enemy; his courage, in any woman^s eyes, was invested 
with sheer nobility. How he had befriended poor little 
Mexicali Joe; how, to-night for the second time, though 
handicapped by his wound, he had gone to Joe’s relief; 
how he, one against three, had had his way, like a lion 
among curs. Wolf or lion? . . . And, finally, she 
abode wonderingly on that queer, distorted chivalry 
which resided in the heart of him, his brutally chivalrous 
way with her. For, no matter how harsh and bitter his 
tongue had been and no matter how hard his eye, he 


TIMBER-WOLF 


221 


had not harmed her; when his hands had been like steel 
upon hers, commanding her while he jeered at her, they 
had not once so much as bruised her soft skin. In no 
way had he harmed her while it had been at his com¬ 
mand, had he desired, to harm her in all ways. . . . 
She thought of being alone with any man like Taggart 
or Gallup or that hawk-faced hanger-on of theirs . . . 
and shuddered. Even Babe Deveril; he had looked at 
her last night, insinuating. . . . She remembered how 
Bruce Standing, rushing down upon them, had thrown 
his own rifle away to grapple with Deveril, man to man 
and no odds stolen; she would never forget the picture 
of him with his axe, attacking the jail and defying the 
law. . . . Her mind raced, her thoughts switched into 
a new groove: how he had set her free just now and 
tossed her the revolver. . . . 

And then came the most vivid picture of all, the lat¬ 
est one, that of Bruce Standing glaring at her just before 
she ran out of the cabin. A second time she came to a 
sudden stop. He had looked like a man dying! Too 
proud, with that vainglorious pride of his, to have her, 
a girl, watch him, a man, die. Too unyieldingly proud 
and defiant to have her, a weakling, look on while he, 
the strongest man she had ever glimpsed, yielded in any¬ 
thing, if even to death itself. What a man he was! A 
man wrong-minded, maybe; a man who overrode others 
and bore them down; a man who set up his own stand¬ 
ards, such as they were, and battled for them whole¬ 
heartedly. Even in the matter of high-handed robbery 
. . . he had robbed Babe Deveril of three thousand dol¬ 
lars, and yet voluntarily, when he was ready to make 
restitution and not before, he had returned the full 
amount, estimating in his own way that he had merely 
borrowed it 1 There was the man disclosed; one who 
made his own laws, and yet who abode by them as loy- 


222 TIMBER-WOLF 

ally and as unswervingly as a true priest may abide by 
God’s. . . . 

And he had looked like a man dying. She turned her 
head. The door of his cabin was still wide open, as she 
had left it; light, though failing, still gushed out. She 
told herself that it was only a natural curiosity, surely 
her sex’s most irrefutable prerogative, that made her 
turn and look. She caught no sight of him; he was not 
striding up and down. And he had not come outside 
for his fallen rifle. . . . 

Her breast rose and fell to a deep sigh. Of relief, per¬ 
haps; perhaps for another emotion. Still she remained 
where she was, pondering. Which way lay the path to 
the other cabin, where Taggart and Gallup and the 
other man were ? And what was Bruce Standing doing ? 
He had named her ^^Liarl” He did not believe when 
she had cried out passionately: did not shoot you!” 

Darting considerations, flashing through her conscious¬ 
ness. The one question was: “ Was Bruce Standing mor¬ 
tally wounded?” Shot in the back a second time; he 
had as much as told her that. 

Babe Deveril was what the world names a ladies’ 
man. Bruce Standing was a man’s man. And the 
strange part of it is that the feminine soul is drawn to 
the man’s man inevitably more urgently than to the 
ladies’ man. . . . 

And all the while Lynette was saying to herself: ^^He 
is a brute and a beast and yet ... he has not harmed 
me once and he has set me free and there is some good 
in him and . . . and he may be dying 1 Alone.” 

She had turned her head to look back; now, hesitat¬ 
ingly, her whole body turned. Slowly, silently, she re¬ 
traced her steps. She came closer and closer to the hid¬ 
den cabin; the light outlining the open door grew fainter, 
dimmer as the fire died down; she heard no sound; she 


TIMBER-WOLF 


223 


caught no glimpse of a man within. She drew still 
closer; she heard the strange whining of his dog. Even 
Thor she could not see until, lingering at every step, she 
came close to the door. Then she saw both, the man 
on his back, his lax hand on the floor; the dog whining, 
distressed, licking the hand one instant and then looking 
wistfully into the master’s face. A face bloodlessly 
white, save for one smear of blood, where a hand had 
sought to wipe his eyes clear of a gathering film. 

Hesitating no longer, she stepped across the threshold. 
Thor looked at her and broke into a new whining, a note 
of sudden joyousness in it. Standing did not hear and 
did not know that she had returned; his eyes were shut 
and there was the pulse as of distant seas in his ears. 
She hurried to the fireplace and tossed into it the last of 
the wood he had gathered; then she came swiftly to 
where he lay. Her heart was beating wildly. . . . 

She saw that his jaw was set, hard and stubborn. 
She stood, uncertain, troubled, half regretful that she 
had come back, hence half of a mind to go hurriedly. 
But she did not stir for a long time, and then only to 
come the last step closer. His eyes flew open; he looked 
up at her. And, as the fire she had freshly piled blazed 
higher, she saw a sudden flash of his eyes . . . whether 
the reflection of the fire or the flash of the spirit within 
him, she could not tell. 

thought you’d gone,” he said. He sat up; it was 
a struggle for him to do so, yet here was a man who 
made of all his life a struggle and who thought nothing 
of a trifling victory over either nature itself or his fel¬ 
low man. 

“You have been cruel. . . 

He mocked her with his haggard eyes. 

“That,” she ran on swiftly, “is what you expected 
me to say to you, Bruce Standing, that you have been 


224 TIMBER-WOLF 

cruel! And, what I came back to say isi^You have been 
good to 

She had not meant to say anything of the kind. But 
when she looked into his eyes, when she saw the clear- 
as-crystal soul of him, a soul as simple as a child’s 
and . . . yes! . . . as clean; and when she remembered 
how she had ridden all day long while he had walked, 
and how he had steadfastly refused to so much as harm 
a hair of her head, the words gushed forth. 

He eyed her queerly; suspicion in his look and con¬ 
fusion. She could have laughed out aloud suddenly, 
since her whole emotional being was aquiver; for he, 
Timber-Wolf, like his own wolf-dog, Thor, distrusted 
her and regarded her with fierce eyes and yet . . . and 
yet . . . 

‘‘Your wound has not been dressed since morning,” 
she said quietly. “And now you’ve got yourself another 
wound. I am going to help you with them.” 

His slave. . . . He had commanded her once to 
help him with his wound. . . . But his slave no longer, 
since he himself had set her free! Yet here she was, 
saying that she stood ready to help him care for his 
wounds. More, already she was getting warm water, 
and his old piece of castile soap . . . she was rolling up 
her sleeves. . . . 

He glared at her through a mist. He could be sure 
of nothing, since it seemed to him that she was half 
smiling 1 A tender, wistful sort of smile ... as if she 
had it in her heart to forget injuries done, to forgive 
him who had done them, and to succor him now that 
there was little of man-strength left in his body. . . . 
Curse her 1 What right had she to forgive, to look at 
a man that way ? He had asked nothing from her, save 
that she leave him. . . . 

He stirred uneasily. Had she smiled ? In this uncer- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


225 


tain light one could be certain of nothing; the flickering 
of the wood fire, casting quick-racing little shadows, 
breaking into their play with sudden warm, rosy gloam¬ 
ings, made it impossible for him to know if she had 
smiled, or if that semblance of a smile were but the 
effect of shifting lights. He held himself rigid, his back 
to the wall now, his right hand clinched on his knee. 

^^When I am in need of your help . . . you who shot 
me. . . 

She came to him unafraid; she set down the can of 
warm water on the floor; she began unbuttoning the 
neck of his shirt. He threw up his hand, the right, 
hard-clinched, as though he would strike her in the 
face; but he let the hand fall back to his side. She heard 
a great sigh. 

“I told you once,’’ she said quietly, ^Hhat I did not 
shoot you. And I am no more liar than you are, Bruce 
Standing.” 

He cursed himself for a fool; he was tired and weak 
and dizzy; his mind was the abode of confusions; he no 
longer knew what was fact and what illusion. One thing 
alone he did know, a marvellous thing; there was in her 
low voice the ring of utter honesty when she said: “I 
did not shoot you!” . . . Liars; all her sex, waging 
their weak wars from ambush, holding their place in 
the world through seduction and deceit, all were liars. 
And yet she troubled him, and with that voice and those 
eyes she bred uncertainty on top of uncertainty in his 
uncertain soul. Her steady fingers were unbuttoning 
his collar. . . . 

“Then why,” he muttered, jeering and challenging, 
“did you run as you did after the shot? And how, 
since you and I were alone in the room . . .” 

“The window was open 1 Under it was the table, my 
pistol where I had dropped it on the table. You turned 


226 


TIMBER-WOLF 


your back; I was going to jump out the window and run 
because for the moment I was afraid! But some one, 
some man, was there; I saw his hand; it caught up the 
pistol. It was he who shot you in the back! And 
when he dropped the pistol back to the table . . 

Again he demanded fiercely: 

“But you ran . . . why? And with the gun in your 
hand! Why Why^ girl, if you are not lying to 
me 

“Haven’t I told you?” Suddenly she was aflame 
with passionate vehemence. “I was frightened; ready 
to run; keyed up to run! There came that shot, and 
you were hit; I thought you were killed! It flashed over 
me that I would be suspected and all evidence would 
point to me and I would be convicted of murder! Cow¬ 
ardly murder! . . . One does not think at such a time; 
there is only the rush of instinct and impulse. I was all 
ready to run; I had no time to think. ...” 

“But you had the revolver in your hand as you went 
through the window! ” 

. “Impulse and instinct, I tell you!” she cried. “In¬ 
stinct to flee; and to snatch at the first weapon for pro¬ 
tection, even though it was the weapon that had just 
shot you I I was a fool, maybe; and maybe by acting 
as I did I saved my own life 1 ” 

He was looking up into her face queerly; she saw the 
savage gathering of his brows; with all his might he 
strove for clear vision and clear thought. With a new, 
terrible keenness, he fixed his eyes upon her; then he 
said deliberately: “Liar!” 

He saw the flash of her eyes, the angry set of her 
mouth; her hands were clinched now, and for a moment 
it was he who believed that he was to be struck full 
across the face. And thereupon his own eyes brightened; 
this girl did not speak like a liar; she did not carry 


TIMBER-WOLF 


227 

herself like one; she had yet to show the first streak of 
yellow which is in the warp and woof of lying souls. 

But Lynette curbed her quick temper and said only: 

‘^You have no right to call me that; my word is as 
good as your word, Bruce Standing. Had I shot you I 
should not have waited for you to turn your back. One 
thing I did do for which I was sorry even while I did it, 
and ashamed; I laughed at you even while I sympathized 
with your anger against a man who, to be little and 
mean, could have your horse killed. And it was not at 
you that I laughed, after all . . . there come times 
when I canT help laughing, though there is nothing to 
laugh at ... it was the shock, I think . . . the incon¬ 
gruousness, to hear you . . 

She ended there, sparing him any further reference to 
his lisping of which he was so desperately ashamed; once 
more she began working at his collar. . . . And again 
there came into the blue eyes of Bruce Standing a flash 
as of blue fire, though he hid it from her; and a sudden 
great, utterly mysterious gladness blossomed magically. 
For, though he did not understand and though he would 
never rest until he did understand, yet already he began 
to believe that this girl with the fearless look spoke the 
truth! And this, because of the ring of her voice and 
the tip of her head, erect on its white throat, and the 
flash of her own eyes, as though the spirit of man and 
maid had struck fire, one from the other. 

“If you’ll help me . . .” said Lynette. “If you can 
sit a little bit forward ? . . . Your shirt will have to be 
torn or cut; I can’t get to your shoulder otherwise. . . .” 

He put up his right hand; as he jerked vigorously 
there was the sound of tearing and ripping; he thrust 
the cloth down from the left side and laid bare his great 
chest and the powerfully muscled left shoulder and upper 
arm. L 3 aiette shuddered; he had lost so much blood! 


> 


228 


TIMBER-WOLF 


And against the smooth perfect whiteness of his healthy 
skin the blood was so emphasized. She found the new 
wound. . . . 

‘‘Shot in the back . . . twice shot in the back/^ 
she said, and again she shivered. “And you don’t 
know who shot you either time ?” 

“I have my own idea about both,” he said curtly. 
And had nothing to add. 

With the warm water and soap she cleansed the fresh 
wound and then the older one. Then, with gentle 
fingers, she did as he bade her with Billy Winch’s salve, 
applying it generously. 

When the thing was done they looked at each other 
strangely; man and maid in the wild-wood, with much 
lying between them, with each asking swift unanswerable 
questions, with the night in the solitudes advancing. 

“It’s a strange thing that you came back,” said 
Standing. 

“Where better had I to go ?” 

“I told you that Taggart and his friends were down 
there. You might have found them.” 

She turned from him abruptly and went back to the 
fireplace; he could see only the curve of her cheek and a 
curl and her shoulder. 

“I have no greater liking for Sheriff Taggart than you 
have,” she said. 

He wanted to see her face, but she was stubborn in 
refusing to turn. He said curiously: 

“Your friend. Baby Devil, ought to be overhauling 
them before long! If you think he decided to come this 
way ?” 

She did not answer. He began to grow angry with 
her for that; for refusing to reply when he spoke; for 
refusing to discuss Babe Deveril. But he kept a shut 
mouth, though with the effort his jaws bulged. He be- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


229 

gan feeling in his pocket for pipe and tobacco; he felt 
the need of it. . . . 

He would have sworn that she had not looked and 
could not have seen, but when he struggled over the 
difficulty of doing everything with one hand she whirled 
and came forward impulsively and finished the task for 
him, packing the tobacco into the black bowl of his pipe 
and handing him a lighted splinter from the fire. 

He muttered something; she had gone back to her 
place at the fire and did not know whether his muttering 
was of thanks or curses; her attitude would have seemed 
to imply that either would find her indifferent. He 
smoked slowly; the strong tobacco, sharp and acrid, did 
him good; a man of steady nerve, he had come to a point 
where his nerves needed steadying; just now he wanted 
silence and his pipe and time to grope for certain read¬ 
justments. Sweeping in all his ways was Bruce Stand¬ 
ing; in building up, tearing down, building up again; and 
always with him was the sheerest joy in building up. . . . 
And Lynette, for the first time in many hours, experi¬ 
enced a moment of bright happiness. 

He knocked out the ashes of his pipe, rapping the 
black bowl sharply against his boot heel. Heavily he 
got to his feet. From the bunk he dragged a blanket 
tossing it on the floor in a corner by the fireplace. Ob¬ 
viously he was intending it for his bed. . . . 

^‘You must lie on the bunk,” she cried impulsively. 
“You are worse hurt than you seem to know. In any 
case, I give you my word I’ll not use it!” 

“Why should I care what you do, girl ? ” he demanded, 
staring at her fiercely. “The bunk is there; take it or 
leave it.” 

Defiantly she snatched up a second blanket and folded 
it into the opposite corner, sitting down on it with her 
feet tucked under her, beginning swiftly to rebraid her 


230 


TIMBER-WOLF 


loose hair. He turned from her to lie down. But since 
he had chosen the corner which he had, and since because 
of his wounds he was forced to lie on his right side, he 
faced toward her. She appeared not to notice him, hav¬ 
ing brooding eyes only for the fire; and yet she had had 
her clear view of his haggard face. Thor came to lie 
close to his master’s feet. 

There were three blankets. Lynette, only asking her¬ 
self curiously what explosion of wrath she might bring 
upon herself, rose and went for the third, and, without 
saying anything, spread it over Standing. He looked at 
her amazed. But he did not speak. Instead, after the 
briefest of hesitations, he floundered to his feet, set one 
boot heel upon the edge of the blanket while in his good 
hand he gripped a corner; with one sudden effort he 
ripped the blanket fairly in two. He tramped across 
the small room and dropped half by her side; he went 
back to his own corner and lay down, dragging the other 
fragment up over his shoulders, like a shawl. . . . 

Lynette was tired almost to the end of endurance; 
further, this night had been no less a tax upon her than 
had the other nights. Now, suddenly, she burst into 
that inimitable laughter of hers, sounding as light and 
gay and mirthful as the laugh of a delighted child. . . . 

“Behold! The acme of politeness!” she cried merrily. 
“A perfectly good bunk and the two travellers going to 
sleep on the floor!” 

He stared at her unsmilingly for a long time. 

“I haven’t thanked you, girl, for what you’ve done 
for me to-night. I am not without gratitude, but I’m 
no man for pretty speeches, I am afraid. At any rate 
here’s this: I came hunting a cowardly sneak of a she-cat 
and I found a true sport. And I think I’m done with 
making war on you 1 . . . Unless ...” 

“Unless . . . what?^^ asked Lynette. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


231 


But he was lying back now, his eyes closed. He did 
not appear to have heard. She, too, lay down with a 
little weary sigh. Her last thoughts were three; they 
mingled and grew confused as all thoughts faded. But 
before they blurred they were these: Bruce Standing had 
dropped his rifle outside and had not gone out for it; 
Babe Deveril had not returned for her, but no doubt was 
still seeking her; and Bruce Standing was done making 
war on her, unless . . . 


CHAPTER XVIII 


Lynette awoke, shivering. It was pitch-dark; the 
fire had burned out; it must be very late, as she was stiff 
and cold. She had been dreaming and her shivering was 
half a shudder of fear. Her nightmare had been one of 
herself attacked and pursued hideously by wild animals; 
lions which in the fashion of dreams, changed into wolves, 
then into savages. She sat up, gathering her blanket 
about her. She heard Standing breathing heavily; she 
could hear, now and then, his mutterings of uneasy sleep. 
Perhaps it had been this which had awaked her ? She 
began listening as one, startled out of slumber, inevitably 
does to another’s incoherencies. It was hard to catch 
a word despite the cabin’s hushed silence into which 
every slightest sound penetrated. The sounds were like 
those of a man babbling in fever. Once it seemed to her 
that he had hardly more than whispered ^^Girl!” 

Always must the mind of one who listens thus be held 
under the spell of another spirit winging its way among 
dreams; the moment is uncanny if only because it brings 
in such close contact the commonplace of every day and 
the inexplicable of dreams. In the night, in the silence, 
under this queer spell, her own mind groping, she stirred 
uneasily. 

It flashed across Lynette that it had not been Tim¬ 
ber-Wolf’s mumbling voice that had awakened her. 
That there had been something else, a new sound from 
without. She listened intently, straining her ears. 
There was some one or something outside! She started to 
her feet, though clinging to the security offered by her 
corner. 

232 


TIMBER-WOLF 


233 


The door was open; it was a mere degree less dark 
outside than within. As she stared into the blackness 
she made out vaguely the mass of trees. A black wall in 
a black night. Some one out there ? Then who ? Bahe 
Deoeril ? 

All along she had held tenaciously to the thought that 
Babe Deveril would come for her. Perhaps he had come 
now; perhaps he lingered outside, not knowing positively 
that she was here, not knowing if Standing were awake 
or asleep, not knowing if Standing were sick of his 
wound or ready with rifle in hand. 

Her thoughts began to fly like stabs of lightning; 
briefly they made everything clear only to plunge her 
whole world of thought back into even more profound 
darkness. Babe Deveril ? It might be! Or it might 
be Mexicali Joe, lurking after his fashion. Or it might, 
equally well, be Taggart with Gallup and that other man 
at his heels. By now she was certain of only one thing: 
There was some one out there. 

She stood rigid for ten or fifteen minutes; Standing 
had become quiet save for his heavy breathing; she 
strove with all senses upgathered tensely to read the 
riddle of the night. Once she was sure of a sound out¬ 
side; but the mystery of a night sound is so baffling! 
A man’s cautious tread ? Or a limb stirring gently ? Or 
a bird among leaves, or a rabbit? It was so easy a 
matter, with her senses so freshly aroused from a night¬ 
mare of wild animals and savage pursuers, to people the 
night with fantastic menaces. 

Bruce Standing was unarmed; his rifle dropped some¬ 
where outside when he had dashed after her. She, too, 
was without a weapon. He had given her the big re¬ 
volver; she had refused it; she had flung it angrily to the 
floor, near the bunk. She remembered seeing it there, 
almost out of sight, under the bunk. . . . 


234 


TIMBER-WOLF 


If it were Babe Deveril, she had nothing to fear. If 
Mexicali Joe, she had nothing to fear. If Taggart and 
Gallup and the other ? What had she to fear from them ? 
Merely arrest, at most, and not so long ago she had been 
eager for that! And if some prowling animal ? 

‘‘There’s nothing to hurt me,” she told herself, fight¬ 
ing to throttle down that trepidation which had leaped 
upon her when she first awoke with the wildly beating 
heart of one threatened in sleep. “If I only had that 
revolver now ... if it chanced to be wolf or bear or 
mountain-cat, one shot at it would send it scurrying. 
And, if a man, there is none for me to be afraid 
of.” 

She began, ever so slowly and guardedly, tiptoeing 
across the floor. She came to the bunk; she stooped and 
groped, and at last her fingers closed about the fallen 
revolver. She clinched it tightly and stood up, again 
rigid. This time she was sure of the sound which came 
again; a man’s step, as guarded as her own had been, but 
betrayed by a little dry twig snapping. 

Again she waited, without moving, a long time. And 
not another sound; only Standing’s deep breathing. 
Once she thought that his breathing had changed; that 
he, too, was awake. But after a moment she persuaded 
herself that she had imagined that; that he was still 
sleeping heavily. But no further sound outside. What 
a cautious man, or what a cowardly, was he out there I 
What did he want ? 

Suddenly she thought of Thor. How was it that Thor, 
a dog, hence man’s superior in as many matters as he 
was man’s inferior, a thing of keenest senses, had given 
no sign ? Why had not Thor stirred when she did; why 
had he not heard what she heard; why was he not al¬ 
ready rushing out, growling, demanding to know what 
intruder lurked in such stealth at his master’s door? 


TIMBER-WOLF 


235 


Had there been a ray of light in the cabin she would 
have had her answer; for Bruce Standing was sitting up, 
his arms were about Thor, one big hand was at Thor’s 
muzzle, commanding quiet. And when Standing com¬ 
manded, Thor obeyed. 

Some girls, some men . . . perhaps most girls and 
most men . . . would have remained in the protection 
of the four walls, resigned to uncertainty, until day¬ 
break. Of their number was not Lynette Brooke, a girl 
little given to fear and greatly moved by a desire to 
know! She waited as long as she could bear to wait. 
Then, holding Taggart’s revolver well before her and 
walking with one silent footfall distanced patiently 
from the other, she gained the door and stepped outside. 
She was trembling; that she could not help. But she 
was determined to go on. And on she did go, cautiously, 
until she had gone ten steps toward the sound which 
she had heard. She paused, turning in all directions, 
ready to fire and ready to run. . . . 

^^Sh! Come here!” 

A whisper through the dark. And one man’s whisper 
is much like another’s. It could have been Deveril’s or 
Taggart’s or even Mexicali Joe’s. 

^‘Who are you ?” her own whisper answered him. 

^Ms Standing in there?” 

^‘Who are you ?” she insisted. 

There was a pause, a silence; a long silence. Then: 

^Xome with me . . . just a few feet. So we won’t 
be overheard.” 

She found herself frowning. Was it Babe Deveril ? 
She did not fancy a man’s whispering; she could not 
imagine a man like Bruce Standing whispering at a 
moment like this! More like him, like any man who 
was a man, to roar out what he had to say rather than 
whisper in the dark. But that curiosity of hers, that 


TIMBER-WOLF 


236 

inborn desire to know, lured her on. But under guard. 
She held her weapon so that it menaced the vague form 
so close to her and she whispered again, not realizing 
that she, too, whispered, but because she was under the 
spell of the moment. 

“I’ll go with you another ten steps . . . count them! 
And I have a revolver in my hand, aimed at the middle 
of your body 1” 

“You’re a game kid! Dead game and I don’t mind 
saying so!” 

They had stopped; the whisper was dropped for a low- 
toned voice. It was not Babe Deveril 1 Not Mexicali 
Joe. Then Taggart ? 

“I want to talk to you. I take it he is in there. 
Asleep ? So much the better. I’m Taggart.” 

“Well? What can I do for you, Mr. Taggart?” 

“That gun of yours,” he said. “I don’t know how 
used you are to guns. Knowing who I am you can point 
it down!” 

“Knowing who you are,” she returned coolly, “I keep 
it just as it is! I have asked what I could do for 
you ?” 

“I’ve seen Babe Deveril. He’s told me all about 
everything.” 

“Babe Deveril 1 When ? Where is he ?” 

Jim Taggart, had time and opportunity afforded, 
would have laughed at her quickened exclamation, being 
an evil-thoughted individual with restricted mental hori¬ 
zons. She appeared interested. He had his own mind 
of her sex and it was not high, since those of her sex with 
whom such as Jim Taggart consorted were not such as 
to give a man a high idea of femininity. In the words 
which, had he spoken his thought aloud, would been 
his, Taggart estimated that “he had this dame’s riumber, 
street, and telephone.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


237 


‘M’ll tell you about Babe Deveril later; and what's 
more, kid, I'll give you your show to throw in with him 
again. Now I’m cutting things short; you know why. 
I was after him for hammering me over the head with a 
gun; I was on your trail for killing a man. Now, since 
the man you killed ain’t dead at all and since I've had 
a good talk with Deveril, I’m ready to let you both go. 
And just to take in a man named Standing.” 

Through one of those odd tricks by which chance 
asserts itself at times, Lynette made a discovery while 
Taggart was talking. She had felt something under¬ 
foot—and that something turned out to be Bruce Stand¬ 
ing’s rifle. 

. . . What had this lost rifle to do with matters as 
they stood ? Why all Jim Taggart’s caution, if he were 
armed? But then Standing had brought Taggart's 
revolver back to the cabin with him. . . . What part 
in to-night's game was this fallen rifle to play ? Her 
thoughts had been withdrawn; so, standing so that for 
the present Taggart could not possibly touch with his 
own foot that which she had stumbled on in the dark, 
she made him repeat what he had said. 

Thus she caught a free instant for thought; thus also 
she grasped all that he had to say and to insinuate. 
And at the end she answered him with a baJBfling, fem¬ 
inine: 

‘‘Well?” 

“I’ve got to talk fast!” growled Taggart. “He’s in 
there, I know. Is he hurt?” 

“You know that he is. . . .” 

“I don’t mean that shot at Gallup’s . . . that you 
gave him . . .” 

“I did not shoot him!” she cried out hotly, sick of 
accusation. 

Taggart sneered at her, muttering threateningly: 


238 TIMBER-WOLF 

You did! For I saw you! I was right there, close 

by. . . 

Within the cabin Bruce Standing, sitting very tense 
and straight, nearly choking his big dog into silence, 
grew tenser and harder. So, Taggart claimed to have 
seen her. . . . Taggart was ^^right there^ close hy, . . 

^^You say you saw me!” gasped Lynette. 

“I tell you this is no time for palaver,” said Taggart 
impatiently. ^^What do you care, so long as I agree to 
let you go free ? And to let Deveril go free along with 
you 1 I guess that means something to you, don’t it ? 
If it don’t mean enough, let me show you: I can grab 
you right now; me, I’m not afraid of any gun any woman 
ever waved! And I can put you across for a good little 
vacation in jail. But I’m letting that go by, wanting 
to get my hooks in one Bruce Standing, good and deep. 
And I got just that! Seeing as Deveril told me what 
happened; how Standing swooped down on you, how he 
beat Deveril up, how he put a chain on you and dragged 
you away after him! If you’ll step into court and swear 
to that. . . . Why, kid, I got him! Got him right! 
Any jury in this country will land on him hard for doing 
to a woman like that. And you can tell the other things 
he’s done to you by now, you and him all alone up here, 
him a brutal devil. . . .” 

Illogically enough it swept over her that it was she 
herself, Lynette, whom the man was insulting, and her 
finger trembled so upon the trigger that all unknowing 
Jim Taggart stood for the instant close upon the verge 
of the great final blackness. But, steadying herself, 
she managed to say: 

^‘Babe Deveril told you that? That Bruce Standing 
had put a chain about me ? How did he know ? That 
was after he had gone!” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


239 


‘‘But/’ muttered Taggart harshly, “he did not go so 
fast! He went up over a ridge and he stopped and rested, 
and in the dark he came back a bit and he hid and saw! 
Anyway, it’s the truth, ain’t it ? And I know ? So he 
must have come back to see!” 

That thought became on the instant the only thought, 
one to rise up and obstruct all others. Deveril had 
seen; he had lingered, hidden in the forest land; he had 
watched her humiliation; he had known that Bruce 
Standing, though armed, was a man sorely wounded 
. . . and he had not come to her then! 

“Where is he?” she demanded swiftly. “When did 
you see him ? Where has he gone ?” 

“He came just as Standing, damn him, had jumped 
us to-night! All unawares Standing took us . . . when 
we were busy with other things. He had the drop on us 
and he made us let the Mexico breed go. Deveril was 
watching but he didn’t have a gun and he couldn’t step 
up and take a hand, knowing his cousin for a dead shot 
and a man who’d rather kill than not.” 

“But now,” demanded Lynette. ^^Nowl Where is 
he?” 

“He’s a wised-up kid and I’m with him, tooth and toe¬ 
nail ! He came up then and he said his say . . . and I 
let him go! And he told me to look out for you and he 
hit the trail, dog-tired as he was, after Mexicali Joe! 
If there’s gold to be had, why Babe Deveril means to be 
in on it. And me, so do I! And you, if you’re on.” 

Underfoot, all this time, Lynette felt Bruce Stand¬ 
ing’s rifle. . . . 

There are times in life for methodical thought, other 
times for swift decisions, bred of impulse and instinctive 

urge. . . . 

She lived again through a certain pregnant crisis, 
saw in mind the whole scene as though some master 


240 


TIMBER-WOLF 


artist with sweeping, bold brush had created the perfect 
vision anew for her, the struggle which had been hers 
and Babe DeveriFs and Bruce Standing’s, when Stand¬ 
ing, with the sun glowing red over his head, had come 
rushing down on them by their camp-fire. She saw 
his rifle . . . the one she now felt underfoot! ... go 
swirling over a pine top as he hurled from him any such 
advantage in fair fight as it spelled; again she watched 
the fight . . . she saw Babe Deveril go up over the ridge; 
she saw herself, striking in fury against Standing’s arm, 
beating the rifle down. . . . 

“Well.^” It was Taggart who spoke the brief word 
now. Which is it? Jail for you ... or a good long 
spell in the pen for him ?” 

. . . And Babe Deveril had come this close . . . she 
had proof of that in Taggart’s knowledge of the chain! 
. . . and had gone on, following the golden lure of Mexi¬ 
cali Joe’s trail 1 

‘‘Well?” said Taggart. 

“ Suppose I were fool enough to refuse what you ask ? ” 

“Then you’d go to jail as sure as hell! It’s you or 
him! And I guess I know the answer.” 

Then Lynette said hurriedly: 

“ Step back ... a little farther from the cabin. Let 
me make sure that he is asleep! There never was a 
man like him. . . . Back a few steps and wait. . . .” 

“There’s no sense in that!” 

“If you don’t I’ll scream out that you’re here! Then 
you’ll never take him; you know the man he is!” 

Taggart mistrusted, and yet, hard-driven and urged 
by her voice, obeyed to the extent of drawing back a 
few steps. Not far, yet far enough for Lynette to stoop 
and grope and find the rifle. She caught it up and 
whirled and ran, ran as for her life, back to the cabin 
door. And she threw the rifle inside, crying out: 


TIMBER-WOLF 


241 


“Wake up, Bruce Standing! There’s your rifle . . . 
and here’s Jim Taggart outside, looking for you 1” 

She came bursting into the cabin and full into Bruce 
Standing’s arms. For he was up on his feet, both arms, 
despite a sore side, lifted. 

“By God!” he shouted. 

He let her go and sought the rifle. She was first to 
fijid it and put it into his searching hand. 

“He is a contemptible coward!” she cried. “As 
if ” 

Standing had the rifle now, and thrust by her and 
rushed into the open doorway, Thor snarling at his side; 
and Standing’s voice, lifted mightily, shouted: 

“Come ahead, Taggart! I’m waiting and ready for 
you! Come ahead! ” 

Later he laughed at himself for that, and thereafter 
explained his laughter to Lynette, saying: 

“He hasn’t a gun on him! I cleaned him out, all but 
one pocket gun, and I fancy he emptied that at me . . . 
in the back. Come—we’ll have a fire!” 

Hastily she shut the door, lest Taggart might have 
one shot left. Standing set his rifle down against the 
wall; she heard the thud of the stock upon the floor. 
Clearly he had no fear of Taggart’s return. He began 
gathering up bits of wood, kneeling to get a fire started. 
Presently under his hands the blaze leaped up and 
brought detail vividly blossoming from the dark of the 
room; his face, white, with the most eager, shining eyes 
she had ever seen; her own face scarcely less pale; the 
homely appointments of the place. He was still on his 
knees at the fireplace; he threw on the last bit of wood 
and watched the quick flames lick at it; he swerved 
about, and it seemed that his eyes, no less than the in¬ 
flammable wood, had caught fire as he cried out in a 



242 


TIMBER-WOLF 


voice which startled her and in words which set her 
wondering: 

‘‘I told you, girl, I’d let you go scot-free . . . unless! 
And here I bogged down like a broken-legged steer in 
the quicksands! But now . . . Now! I’ve got it all 
figured out. I don’t let you go I Neither to-night . . 
.and he was on his feet, towering over her—‘^or ever!” 

And, as quick as thought, he was at the door and 
liad shot a bolt home and had clicked a padlock, and, 
swinging about again, stood looking down at her, his 
eyes filled with dancing lights. 


CHAPTER XIX 


/ 


There was no more sleep through what was left of 
the night, and scarcely more of talk. Standing piled his 
fire high, and, unmindful of his discarded rifle, went out 
for more wood; Lynette dropped down on the blanket 
in her corner and named herself a silly fool. He came 
back, carefully relocking his door; kept his fire blazing, 
and made his coffee and smoked his pipe. And then, 
in that great golden voice of his, he began singing. And, 
through its wild rhythm, she knew the song for the same 
as that which she had heard for the first time when he 
had hurled himself both into Big Pine and into her 
life. His voice rose and swelled and filled the poor 
cabin to overflowing, and must have filtered through 
chinks and cracks and spilled out through the forest 
land, and for great distances through the quiet solitudes. 
And, at the end, in a sudden upgathering into all that 
tremendous resounding volume of sound of which his 
magnificent voice was capable, came that unforgettable 
wolf cry. If she required any reminding, here she had 
it, that she was housed in the same cabin with Timber- 
Wolf! A fierce outcry, to go resounding and echoing 
across miles and miles of forest lands, meant, as she was 
quick to realize, to carry both defiance and challenge 
to his enemies. 

‘‘You have had your choice, girl!” he shouted at her. 
“You could have gone free! I gave you your freedom. 
But you would not go. And that was because it was 
in the cards, in the fates, in the stars, if you like, that 
you and I are not to part yet! The door is locked; I 
stand between you and it. So, you stay here with me! ” 

243 


244 


TIMBER-WOLF 


For the first time she was truly and deeply afraid of 
him. But he went back to his place by the fire, and 
sat on the old stump seat, and filled his pipe again with 
hard, nervous fingers and glared at the fire. For a little 
he seemed to have forgotten that she was there. And 
then at last, when she saw that he was going to speak 
again, she forestalled him, saying swiftly: 

am tired and sleepy. I am going to sleep.’^ 

He checked his speech, saving whatever he had to 
say to her. She lay back on her blankets, and, though 
she had had no such intention, soon drifted off to sleep. 
And he, with pipe grown cold, sat and glowered over his 
fire, and put to himself many a question, growing fierce 
over his inability to answer any one of them. But, at 
least, in his groping he forgot the pain of his wounds. 

“You are not asleep,’’ he said after a very long time. 
“I know that; I can tell. You are pretending. And 
you are tliinking, thinking hard and fast! And so am I 
thinking! As I never did before now. You might as 
well save yourself the labor of struggling with your 
problems, since I am doing the planning for both of us 
right now; since everything is in my hands and I mean 
to keep it there.” 

She heard but gave no sign of hearing; she kept her 
face averted from him so that he could not see whether 
her eyes were open or shut. Open they were, and the 
man appeared to know it. 

“Am I wise man or fool?” he cried. “He only is 
wise who knows what he knows and steers his craft by 
the one steady star in his sky! ” 

She would not answer him when he spoke; she could 
not just now. She lay still, as if asleep. He relapsed 
into a long silence, his eyes now on her, now on his fire. 

“This neck o’ the woods is getting all cluttered up 
with folks!” he muttered abruptly, with such sudden- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


245 


ness that he startled her. “I’ve a notion to run the 
whole crowd in for trespassing! ... Or better, girl, 
you and I move on. Where there’s elbow room; room 
to talk in. We’ve got to quarry out our own blocks of 
stone and build up our own lives, and we want a bit of 
the world to ourselves. What’s more, we’re going to 
have it 1” 

She knew, as every girl knows when that mighty mo¬ 
ment comes . . . and her girl-heart beat hard and fast 
. . . that after his own fashion Bruce Standing, Timber- 
Wolf, was making love to her. 

“Dawn!” he said, and she understood that he spoke 
with himself as much as with her. “That’s all we’re 
waiting for, the first streak of dawn. Then we move on. 
Where ? I know where, and no other man knows 1” 

He began impatiently stalking up and down; he 
seemed to have forgotten his wounds, and yet, stealing 
her swift glances at him, she could see that his face 
had lost little of its whiteness and that his whole left side 
was stiff. Again, bestowing mentally a strange epithet 
upon him, she regarded the man as “inevitable.” Could 
anything stop him or divert his career into any channel 
but that of his own choosing ? She was afraid of him. 

“You told me that I might go! Where I pleased, 
when I pleased!” 

He swung about and turned on her a face of whose 
. expression in that dim, flickering light she could make 
nothing. 

“You had your choice! You came back! Now I 
know something which I did not know before.” 

He began pacing up and down again, making the 
cabin’s smallness further dwarfed by his great strides. 
He fascinated her; she watched him, and her fear, form¬ 
less and nameless, grew until it seemed that it would 
choke her. 


246 TIMBER-WOLF 

There was a boarded-up window. A thin slit of light 
showed. 

^‘We breakfast and go/’ he told her. 

“And if I refuse to go with you 

“I have my chain and my good right arm!” 

Then, as once before, tingling with anger bom of fore¬ 
seen humiliation, she cried out: 

“I hate you, brute that you are 1” 

“Not bmte, but man,” he told her sternly. “And, 
ever since the world was young, men, when they were 
men, claimed their mates and took and held them!” 

Again for a long time he was silent. And then, on 
his feet, his arms thrown out, he cried in a strange 
voice: 

love you!” 

He made strange mad music in her soul. She tried 
again to cry out: “I hate you!” She knew that still she 
was afraid of him, more afraid than ever. Yet he strode 
up and down and looked a young valiant god, and his 
golden voice found singing echoes within her soul and 
his wild extravagances awoke throbbing extravagances 
in her. . . . What can one know? What misdoubt? 
We are like babes in the dark. Of what can one be sure ? 
Of the stars above ? . . . Our hopes are like stars. . . . 

“I am no poet, though next to a strong fighting man 
I’d rather be a tme poet than anything else God ever 
created! Were I a poet I’d build a song for you, girl! 
A song to ring through the eternal ages; going back to 
the roots of things when You and I were first You and I! 
It would be a song like one of the old troubadours’, tell¬ 
ing of great deeds and great loves only ... for you and 
I have never been the ones for cowardly littlenesses! 
^ I’d make a song to hang about the world’s memory of 
‘ you like a golden chain. And I’d carry on, having the 
poet’s soul and vision, into ten thousand lives to come; 


TIMBER-WOLF 


247 


down to the end of time when eternity is only at its be¬ 
ginnings 1 . . . But I am only plain Bruce Standing, a 
simple fighting man, and no poet; one who at best can 
but mouth the voicings of the true poets. So I can only 
pour all my heart and soul, girl, into my brief poem: 
I love you. I have always loved you! Always and 
always I shall love you! . . . And Ill crack any man’s 
skull that so much as looks at you ! ” 

She was not sure of his sanity; not certain that a fever, 
bred of his wounds, was not burning into his marrow. 
And yet - 

“ It’s dawn, I tell you! We boil our coffee, we pick up 
a mouthful of food. And then we move on ! And why ? 
Because we’re sure to have callers here in another day or 
so, and just now I don’t want other people; I want you, 
girl, and only you and the rest of the world can go to 
pot! . . . And now we go!” ^ 



CHAPTER XX 


Lynette, in a mood to expect anything of fate, won¬ 
dered vaguely where the steep trail of adventure now led. 
She would not have been surprised had Standing set 
his plans for some spot a hundred miles distant. But she 
was surprised to arrive so soon, after only two or three 
hours, at their destination. He looked at her, exulting. 

“Here is Eden he cried out joyously. “Remember 
the name, girl; bestowed upon this spot no longer ago 
than this very minute! Eden! And as far from the 
world as that other distant Eden. Here we stop and 
here no man finds us!” 

He had led the way, upward along a rocky slope. He 
had brought her into a spot which she would have named 
“The Land of Waterfalls!” A tiny valley with a 
sparkling mountain creek cleaving like flowing crystal 
through a grassy meadow; tall trees, noble patriarchs 
bounding it. Steep canon walls shutting in the timber 
growth; a narrow ravine above with the water leaping, 
plunging, tumbling translucent green over jagged rocks, 
splashing into a series of pools, turned into rainbow 
spray here and there .in its wild cascadings. The world 
all about was murmurous with living waters, with bees, 
with the eternal whisperings of the pines. 

And here began an idyl; a strange idyl. A man as¬ 
serting his power as captor; a maid made captive; two 
souls wide awake, questing, swung from certainty to un¬ 
certainty, gathered up in doubt. Life grown a thing of 
tremendous import. 

All morning had Standing been wracked with pain. 
Yet none the less did he hold unswervingly to his pur- 

248 


TIMBER-WOLF 


249 


pose. Now he sat down, his back to a tree. Thor came 
and lay at his feet. Lynette stood looking down upon 
the two. 

‘^Rest,” he said. ^‘Here is your home for a time. 
A day? Ten days? Who knows? Not I, girl! All 
that I know I have told you; here we rest and here we 
take life into our hands and mould it ... as we have 
always moulded it! We are at the gates; we enter or we 
turn to one side 1 We go on or we go back. Which ? 
When we know that, we know everything.’’ 

He had brought with him, slung across his back, a 
great roll from the hidden cabin. His rifle lay across his 
knees. He looked up into her face with eyes which, 
though haggard, shone wonderfully. She sat down, 
ten steps from him; her clasped hands were in her lap; 
her eyes were veiled mysteries. 

‘^Taggart won’t look for us here,” he said. ^‘He 
hasn’t the brains of a little gray seed-tick! He’ll be sure 
we’ve made a big jump, forward or back, ten times this 
distance. Besides, he has to go somewhere to get him¬ 
self a new set of guns 1 Imagine him tackling anything 
with an ounce of risk in it unless he was heeled like an 
army corps 1 I begin to lose respect for that man.” 

Lynette was thinking but one thing: ^‘She was not 
afraid of this man; not afraid to be alone with him in 
pathless solitudes. She might choose to be elsewhere 
. . . yet she was safe with him. For, above all, he was 
a man; and never need a true girl fear a true man.” 
And, when she stole a swift glance at his face, it lay in 
her heart to be a bit sorry for him. Sympathy ? It 
lies close to another eternal human emotion 1 He looked 
like one whom fate had crushed and yet whose spirit 
refused to be crushed. He looked a sick man who, scorn¬ 
ing all the commands laid upon the flesh, carried on. 

After a while he turned to look upon her, and for the 


250 TIMBER-WOLF 

first time she saw a new and strange look in his eyes, a 
look of pleading. 

Don’t misjudge me, girl,” he said heavily. ^‘Rather 
than see your little finger bruised I’d have a man drive 
a knife in me! I’m just blundering along now . . . 
blundering . . . trying to see daylight. I won’t hurt 
you. There’s nothing on earth or in Heaven so sure as 
that. But don’t ask me to let you go 1” 

She made him no answer. She began thinking of his 
wounds; he gave them such scant attention! He 
should be caring for them; what he should do was to 
hasten to a surgeon. She wondered if still he clung to 
his conviction, the natural one after all, that she had 
shot him ? And she wondered, as she had done so many 
a time before: “Who had shot him ?” Whose hand that 
which she had seen reach through her window and snatch 
up her revolver and fire the cowardly shot? Taggart, 
only a few hours ago, had said: “I saw! I was right 
there!” ... 

“Was it Jim Taggart who shot you in the back last 
night?” she demanded suddenly. 

“Yes,” he said. “At least, I think so.” 

“Is he that kind of man ?” 

Now his eyes were keen and hard upon hers. 

“I begin to think that he is, girl,” he said shortly. 
“Why?” 

She shrugged and again turned away. 

He lumbered to his feet. Thor, knowing where he was 
going, barked and leaped ahead. 

“ Come, I’ll show you where we pitch camp.” 

She looked about her. Mere madness to attempt 
flight now; he would bear down upon her before she had 
run twenty steps. And did she want to run just now ? 
She had her own measure of curiosity. ... Was it 
only that? . . . and she had, locked away securely in 


TIMBER-WOLF 


251 


her breast, her absolute positive knowledge that she 
had nothing to fear at his hands. She rose and followed 
him. 

Suddenly he swerved about, confronting her, his eyes 
stern, his voice hard with the emotion riding him. 

Madman I may be,’’ he said. ‘^Fool, I am not, 
praise God! Last night I heard; you could have chucked 
that rifle into Taggart’s hands and could have gone 
free yourself . . . and by now I’d be a dead man! But, 
glory be, there isn’t a streak of yeUow in your whole 
glorious being! ” 

The blood ran up into her face; it made her hot 
throughout her whole body. Praise, from him, to stir 
her like that! Her eyes flashed back angrily, for she 
was angry with herself. 

“Come,” he muttered. “Talk’s cheap at any time. 
And I’m to show you where we make our first home.” 

With her teeth sharply catching up her underlip, she 
held her silence. He went on some two-score paces and 
stopped; with a sudden gesture he said: 

“Here I’ve spent, God knows how many nights, when 
I had to be off by myself! No roof for us, girl, but who 
wants a roof with that sky above us ?” 

Here was a natural grotto which at another time would 
have made her exclaim in delight: a nook, set apart, 
thresholded in tender grass shot through with those tiny 
delicate blooms of mountain flowers. On one side a cliff, 
outjutting, thrusting forward a great overhanging shelf ' 
of rock which looked as though it must fall and yet 
which, obviously, had held securely through the centu¬ 
ries. Three big pine-trees, two of them leaning strangely 
toward the cliff, as though yearning to lean against the 
sturdy rock and rest there upon its iron breast. The 
whole ringed about by a dense copse of brush, thick as 
a wall and rearing high above her head. Almost a cave 


252 


TIMBER-WOLF 


made of cliff and growing things, cosy and warm, with 
its opening fronting the stream which was never silent. 
Thor ran ahead into the dusky seclusion and barked his 
invitation to them to follow. A thick, dry mat, under 
Thor’s feet, of fallen pine-needles. 

Standing tossed his roll inside; he began, with one 
hand, to work with the knotted rope. Lynette came for¬ 
ward swiftly, saying; 

“At least I have two hands. . . 

Their hands brushed over the labor. Again the hot 
blood raced through her, and again sudden anger, anger 
at herself, flashed through her being. 

And a tingling, like that which shot through her, was 
in Bruce Standing’s veins. He caught her hand. 

“Girl!” he said huskily. 

“Don’t!” she cried in alarm. 

He dropped her hand and rose swiftly to his feet. 

“You are right,” he muttered. “Not yet . . .” 

How could this man at a touch make her heart beat 
like mad ? She was afraid . . . she knew that she was 
not afraid of him . . . yet she was afraid. 

“I’m sorry,” he said roughly. Actually, marvelling, 
she saw that the big man looked embarrassed. “Look 
here, girl: I’ve come to know you a bit and, thinking 
what I think, I hold that I know you well! I’ll take my 
chance that you are no petty crook, that you are no 
coward, that you are no liar! So . . .” 

“Then,” she cried, jumping to her feet, all eagerness, 
“ do you believe me when I say that I did not shoot you ? ” 

His eyes met hers steadily; he answered promptly: 

“You have told me . . . and I believe. / knowV 

A rush of gladness, an intoxication of gladness, swept 
over her. Her eyes were shining, soft and bright and 
happy like stars. 

“But,” she said, “if not I, then who?” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


253 


^^Jim Taggart/^ he said as unhesitatingly as he had 
spoken before. ‘‘Jim told you that he saw, didn’t he 
That he was Johnny on the spot ? Of course he was! 
And we’d had our plain talk. And he figured it out, 
that unless that very day I had changed my papers, I 
still named him in them my old bunk-mate and friend, 
and that I’d not forget him with a legacy! If I had died 
imder that bullet, Jim Taggart would have had it doped 
out that he’d stand to win about a hundred thousand 
dollars! And for a tenth of that he’d crucify Christ!” 

“But . . .” 

“There are no buts about it! You did not do it; then 
Jim Taggart did. He shot me last night, a second time 
and the second time in the back! He was once a man; 
now he’s a Gallup dog, a man gone to seed, a cur and one 
for such as you and me to forget about. I hope to high 
heaven I never see the man again; for the sake of what 
has been between Jim Taggart and me, when both of us 
were younger, I’d rather let the past bury its dead. For 
if he ever comes trailing his filth across my trail again, 
I’ll smash him into the earth.” He made a wide angry 
gesture, as though he would wipe an episode and a man 
out of his life. “But you interrupt me; I was going to 
say something. Just this: I’ll leave you alone. For an 
hour, for a dozen hours! You want rest, you want soli¬ 
tude and a chance to think. So do I. I can chain you 
to a tree and be sure of you! Or I can ask you to give 
me your word that you’ll wait here until I come back to 
you . . . and I already know you well enough to know 
that will hold you tighter than any chain that was ever 
forged!” 

Lynette, without hesitating, answered: 

“I do want rest and I do want to be alone. Is that to 
be wondered at ? Until noon I’ll wait for you to come 
back.” 


254 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“Until high noon/’ he said. “And, girl, you pledge 
me your word on that?” 

“Yes!” 

“ Come, Thor 1 ” He turned and left her, his great dog 
at his heels, going up the narrowing canon. 

“I’U not spy on you 1” he called back, when he had 
gone a hundred yards. “You’ll hear me shouting to 
you well before I come within eye-shot.” 

And then she lost him, gone among the lesser, denser 
trees thick about the creek’s margins. 

She turned her back on the grotto of his choosing, 
and went out into the full sunlight. She found a spot 
in the open, ringed about by the majestic pines, a grassy 
sward with the cleaving silver line of the creek cutting 
across it. For the first time in hours . . . how many 
endless hours ? how many days ? . . . she was alone! 
No man at her side, either protecting or dominating. 
Her lungs filled with a deep sigh. Alone and secure in 
her aloneness for a matter of several hours. 

There was a certain singing happiness, electric within 
her, and it sprang, bright-winged, from her own charac¬ 
teristic pride. Bruce Standing had left her to an absolute 
physical freedom, knowing her bound by that intangi¬ 
ble and unbreakable bond of her promise. He, a man 
who did not break his own word knew her for a girl who 
did not break hers 1 And he knew, at last, that it had 
not been her hand that had fired that cowardly shot. 

“It was cruel ... to have laughed at him. I did 
not mean to laugh. Would to God . . .” 

But if she had not laughed ? Then what ? Then how 
much of her adventure would have followed ? How 
much of it did she, after all, regret? . . . She fell to 
wondering dreamily on Babe Deveril. Where was he ? 
And would she see him again ? And, if she should see 
him. . . . 


TIMBER-WOLF 


255 


A thousand riddles and, as always, no answer to the 
riddles which spring from eternity. Only the merry 
voice of the purling creek to talk back to her, that and 
the rustling whisper ebbing and flowing through the 
pine tops. • The stream, like a companionable human 
voice, called to her insistently. She rose and went down 
to it and stooped to drink; she bathed her hands and 
arms and face. How lonely it was here! She cast a 
quick glance up-stream; long ago Standing, with his big 
dog at his heels, had passed out of sight. And he had 
given her gage of promise for promise given ... he 
would send his shouting voice ahead of him before he 
came back. . . . 

So she bathed fearlessly, watched only by the soli¬ 
tudes, guarded by their sombre depths; she plunged, 
with a little shivery gasp, into the deep, cool pool be¬ 
low the slithering waterfall; the water slipped, gleaming 
like a bejewelled film over her pure-white body, mak¬ 
ing it rosy when she emerged, like rose petals. . . . She 
dressed in furious haste, all ablush and yet steeped in 
a confident knowledge that no eye, save the bright eye of 
a curious brown bird, had seen. She felt new-born; 
refreshed beyond belief. She ran back up the bank and 
sat down in the very spot where she had dropped first 
when Standing had left her. She began, always hurry¬ 
ing, to comb out her hair with her fingers. Sitting there 
in the open she let it sun. . . . 

She rested. She drank deep, thankfully, of the hour. 
To be alone, to be secure in the moment, to have no 
danger pressing down upon her, above all to have no 
mind save her own dictating to her. It was glorious 
and life was good and glad and golden, infinitely worth 
the living. So passed an hour. It was so quiet here; 
so unutterably lonely. Only the voice of the creek 
and the million-tongued murmuring pines. Her swift 


TIMBER-WOLF 


256 

thoughts raced ten thousand ways. They touched upon 
Big Pine; on Taggart; Mexicali Joe; a gold-mine still 
for men to find; Maria, the Indian girl whom Deveril 
had kissed; Deveril himself; that one-legged man who 
rode horseback and carried forth the word and the law 
of his master; Thor, a dog; Bruce Standing. Most of 
all, Bruce Standing. She wondered where he was, what 
doing ? Caring for his own wounds ? Lying on his back, 
his white face turned up, his eyes shut, tight shut ? And 
he loved her ? 

Bruce Standing loved her, Lynette? Was that true? 
What was love ? Whence came love ? For what pur¬ 
pose ? What did it do to the hearts and souls and bod¬ 
ies of men . . . and girls ? Was love for her ? She had 
never experienced it, not true, abiding love. Did Babe 
Deveril. ... 

Another hour. Shadows slowly shifting, moving like 
gigantic hands of eternal clocks. Time passing, time 
that answers all questions, man’s and maid’s, saint’s and 
sinner’s. She stirred uneasily and sat up. She looked 
at the pine tops and, beyond them, at the sun. It was 
almost noon! 

Come noon. . . . What then ? Come high noon be¬ 
fore Bruce Standing, and she was free! Released from 
her promise, all bonds snapped! Free ! 

She jumped to her feet. Her eyes went questing, 
questing, everywhere. To be free again; to be her own 
self, Lynette, untrammelled. . . . And she felt awon- 
dering illogically: “Can it be that, after all, he was driv¬ 
ing himself beyond any man’s endurance ? that he is more 
badly hurt than either he or I knew ?” 

But he returned a full half-hour before even the most 
eager could name it noon. True to his word, he sent 
his voice, like a glorious herald, ahead of him. She 
heard him call, not the wolf cry, but a rollicking shout. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


257 


And ten minutes later he himself came, plainly in the 
highest of good humors. He was still pale and looked 
haggard, but his eyes were flashing and triumphant and 
untroubled. 

He came to her, splashing across the creek, water 
flying about his boot-tops. 

^HVe had a bath,” he announced from afar. “And 
IVe plastered myself with the worst that Billy Winch 
can concoct, and Richard is himself again!” He came 
closer, towered above her and said: “You, too, have 
bathed! You look it, as fresh from the plunge as any 
Diana! It’s good to be cleaUj isn’t it?” 

She flushed and was ashamed for it. She bit her lip 
and made no answer. 

“Come,” he said. “We’ll lunch. And now, and from 
now on for some sixty years, my girl, it will be I who 
waits on you! The slave role reversed!” and he 
laughed. 

“I promised to wait for you; I make no more prom¬ 
ises !” 

“That’s fair enough! I watch you then!” 

“Do you want to make me hate you ?” 

“Rather, I want you to come to love me.” 

“ Could any girl come to love a man who treats her as 
you have done me ?” 

“Could any girl come to love a man,” he demanded 
earnestly, “who thought so little of her as to let her es¬ 
cape him when once destiny had brought her and him 
together ? ” 


CHAPTER XXI 


The most perfect of the summer months in this se¬ 
cluded mountain nook, not inaptly named ‘‘Eden’’ by 
Standing, was a period of time measuring itself in 
soft, fragrant loveliness. The days were balmy, perfect, 
halcyon; gentle hours of blue cloudlessness and golden 
sunshine and little breezes which scarcely ruffled the 
clear water in the bigger pools; night as clear as crystal, 
with flaring stars like distant torches above the yellow 
pine tops; nature in her gentlest mood here among the 
ruggedness of the wilderness, expressing herself in the 
most delightful of odors wafted through the woods, in 
the tenderest tiniest blossoms of wild flowers; a time of 
infinite hush and infinite solitude and peace. 

To have chafed and been unhappy here, to a spirit 
like either Bruce Standing’s or Lynette Brooke’s, would 
have seemed next door to an impossibility. Even the 
girl, though restrained, a prisoner of a man’s will when 
the bright star of her life had ever been one of splendid 
independence, found it easier to smile or laugh aloud at 
the sober-faced antics of Thor . . . when she and Thor 
were alone with none to see! . . . than to sigh. She 
knew her periods of restiveness and bitter rebellion; 
they were due not to her environment, but to the thought 
that another than herself was dictating to her. But for 
one reason or another these periods were rarer and briefer 
than her other hours of a strange sort of peacefulness. 

“It’s because I’ve been worn out and only now am 
resting,” she tried to tell herself. “Recuperating from 
a condition of exhausted mind and body.” 

Thus four days and nights passed. There had been, 
during all that time, not the slightest opportunity to 

258 


TIMBER-WOLF 


259 


escape. The first day Standing had hurled the chain 
from him, as far as he could send it. But he had 
not lost sight of her for more than a few minutes at a 
time, saving such times that she gave him her promise 
that she would wait for him to come back. He accepted 
her word as he expected all the world to accept his. On 
other occasions, when he allowed her briefer freedoms, 
he had said merely: “No chance to run for it, girl! 
I’d overtake you, you know, in no time. Even if you 
hid, here’d be old Thor, nosing you out!” Then he 
laughed, adding: “For his own sake, the renegade, as 
well as for his master’s! He’s fallen in love with you, 
too.” He made her bed in the rock-and-tree grotto; 
he labored, one-handed, over it for hours. With his 
heavy clasp knife he cut the tender tips of resinous 
branches; he heaped them high; he covered all with 
great handfuls of fragrant grass, thick with the tall red 
flowers that grew down by the creek, odorous with the 
tender white blossoms which shyly lifted their little 
heads to dot the grassy slopes. . . . He made her a 
bathing-pool: stiff and sore all up and down his left side, 
he worked with his right hand, dragging big boulders up 
out of their ancient beds, piling them in a ring about 
the pool, plastering them over the top with great hand¬ 
fuls of that carpet-like moss which thrived in these 
cool places. 

“If you’d let me go!” 

“No; not yet. . . . What man can read the mind of 
a girl ? How do I know what you would do ? Where 
you would go ? My wounds are healing; until they heal 
I am only half a man. You might whisk away from me, 
I tell you; and I’d have to follow and seek you, if you 
led me through hell on the way to heaven; and I must 
be whole again. And I’ve got to get everything 
straight. . . .” 


26 o 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Always when he left her he returned before the end 
of the time she had promised to wait for him. And 
always he sent, as herald of his approach, his golden 
voice forward to her. At times in an echoing shout. 
IMore than once in an outburst of singing which thrilled 
her strangely. What a voice the man had! And once, 
when he had elected to bathe in the starlight, he sent 
down to her that cry which she had heard the first time 
from the door of Babe DeveriFs cabin in Big Pine . . . 
the wild, fierce call of the timber-wolf which, despite 
her naming herself “fool,” sent a shiver into her blood. 
. . . Once this happened: He had left her in the fore¬ 
noon, accepting her word that she would not stir until 
high noon. Usually he came well in advance; this time 
she watched the climbing sun and the creeping shade and 
suddenly her heart began its wild beating; it was almost 
noon and he was not here; no sound of his coming. 
When he shouted to her and then came rushing into 
camp, he found that she had been working frenziedly 
with a stick and a stone; driving the sliver of wood like 
a stake into the ground. . . . She started up, her face 
crimson. 

“Well?” he said, his hands on his hips, staring down 
at her. “What’s that?” 

She blurted out the explanation and then was angry 
with herself for telling him. She had meant to stay 
until the tip end of the giant pine’s shadow fell where it 
marked midday; she had meant there to drive in her 
stake; for him it would be a marker, an assurance from 
her that she had kept her word with him, that she had 
waited as she had promised to wait . . . that then, 
scorning him, she had snatched at her rights and had fled! 

His first impulse was toward laughter. And then, 
strangely quiet, he stood looking at her and she saw a 
gathering mist in his eyes! 


TIMBER-WOLF 


261 


‘^Girl!” he muttered. '‘Oh, girl! . . . God, I love 
you!” 

“I hate you . . 

. . . How many times had she cried out in those 
words! And how much of that did she mean ? In her 
heart, in her soul ... in the most hidden recesses of 
her most hidden being ? 

Thus she had hours to herself. And, therefore, had 
Bruce Standing hours to himself. For he wanted them. 
He wanted to be away from her, where he could not see 
her, could not hear that low music of her voice, could not 
catch that soft lure of her eyes, could not be tempted 
to have it happen that his rude hand brushed her 
hand. . . . Her hand, though she had been all these 
days and nights outdoors, roughing it, seemed to him a 
maddening realm of crumpled rose-leaves . . . pink-and- 
white rose-leaves. He left her, secure in her pledge that 
she would wait for him, and threw himself down on his 
back and stared up through slowly shifting branches and 
mused on her. He thought how like a flower she was, 
the queen of flowers . . . and he could have wept that he 
was so big and ungentle. He thought of Babe Deveril, 
and cursed him for being so slender and debonair; grace¬ 
ful and light of mood; gen tie-voiced, with the knack 
of pretty words to pretty ladies. And Babe Deveril had 
befriended her; stood champion to her against him 1 He 
ground his teeth. He leaped up and paced back and 
forth, forgetful of all such insignificant nothings as 
trifling wounds of the flesh. He recalled how, man to 
man, he had broken Babe Deveril, and he laughed out 
loud. ... Yet it remained that Babe Deveril had 
stood her friend and protector when he had pursued 
them both, linking them but the closer, with his wrath. 
She and Deveril had travelled together, side by side and 
hand in hand, miles and other miles of the open soli- 


262 


TIMBER-WOLF 


tudes; they had been drawn close together, driven closer 
together. He, Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf, and Fool, 
had done that! And what spark had been struck out of 
the flint of the adversity which he had hurled at them ? 
. . . Had they loved . . . had they kissed . . . was 
she now longing with a sick heart for the return of Babe 
Deveril ? 

^^Oh, Lord he cried out, his great iron fingers crook¬ 
ing as his arms were thrown out. “Deliver him into 
these hands 

Lynette had no mirror. Standing began to grow a 
lusty young beard, as blond as his hair, shot through 
with red gleams. She knew the need of fresh clothing. 
When he was away she did her washing as best she could, 
pounding garments against the rocks in the creek; she 
dried them and hid them and donned them without his 
knowing . . . though of course he knew as she knew that 
he did his own rude washings. There was a spring at the 
side of the canon, one of the many sources which fed the 
stream; a shadowed, tranquil place. Of this she made 
her pier-glass! She stooped and looked down into its 
glassily smooth surface. It gave back her own image; 
it reflected the dark green of the pines, the lighter green 
of the willows. Even the subdued colors of her worn suit. 
She washed her hair and groomed it; no comb, no brush, 
but agile fingers. Most of all, when secure through his 
promise in return for her own, did she enjoy her plunge 
in the pool he had made for her. The slender whiteness 
of her slipped hastily down under the translucent cover 
of the cool, flowing water; she was as swift in her move¬ 
ments as any slim-bodied trout that darted about her, 
scurrying into its retreat; the water shot a thrill through 
her; she emerged, dripping, charged with all the electric 
currents of well-being. 

“If this were only a holiday . . . instead of imprison¬ 
ment!’’ 


TIMBER-WOLF 


263 

She, too, thought of Babe Deveril, as was inevitable. 
And in many ways: One, always recurrent, was: ‘‘Could 
she have been as sure of Babe Deveril as she was of Bruce 
Standing ? As secure in her utter conviction of safety ? ” 
And here was a question to which she found no ready 
answer. Babe Deveril, leaping full-breastedly into the 
stream which had swept her off her feet, had been a 
friend to her from the beginning; from the beginning 
Bruce Standing had been a menace. 

. . . Best of all she loved the waterfall. It was her 
shower-bath. But, more than that, it was her friend 
and confidante, and, beyond aught else, a living, glim¬ 
mering, varicolored thing of gossamer beauty. It talked 
with her, it was at once handmaiden and musician and 
troubadour; it plashed and sang and poured its cadences 
into quiet harmonies which sank into her soul. It had 
leapt and sparkled and poured itself onward unstintedly, 
unafraid, for a thousand years; for a thousand years 
would it keep up its merry dancings, uncaring if only 
the tall pines watched or if men and maids brought hither 
their loves and hates and hopes and fears. Unstable it 
was always, always falling; secure was it in its diaph¬ 
anous veilings of its own merry immortality. She 
loved it for its abandon, for its recklessness, for its 
translucent myriad beauties. It lived; it sang and 
sparkled; it filled the moment with musical murmurings 
and recked not of all those vague threats and shadows 
of a vague future. . . . She sat here, quiet under the 
spell of its dashings and splashings and eerie flu tings . . . 
musing, her soul drawn forth into all those vague and 
troublous musings which beset the heart of youth. 

Youth? Young, too, was Bruce Standing! He 
hearkened to the cascading waters; he listened to the 
harp-tongued whisperings of the pines. . . . He had 
done everything wrong; he told himself that a thousand, 
thousand times. Yet he told himself savagely that 


TIMBER-WOLF 


264 

throughout the insanities, the veritable madnesses of 
constricted human life there flowed always, onward and 
sweepingly upward, the great, triumphal, eternal forces 
of destiny. And, in the end ... in the end ... it all 
made for good. For eternal and triumphant good. 

. . . After all, but the old, old story of man and maid, 
converging to the one gleaming, focal point though across 
distances oceans-wide removed. 

He had his point of view; Lynette Brooke had her 
point of view. Yet it remains that from two widely sep¬ 
arated peaks two eager hearts may see the same sun rise. 

“Tell me,’’ he said once. “What manner of man is 
this Babe Deveril ? I know him as a man may know a 
man; you know him otherwise. Tell me; what have 
you found him to be ? ” 

Never would she have been Lynette, had she not been 
ever quick of instinct . . . instinct leaping, never look¬ 
ing, yet so certain to strike true! She read the thought 
under a thought; there came a living, joyous gloating; 
she cried warmly, all the while watching him: 

“A true friend and a gentleman! A man unafraid 
. . . one like a loyal knight of the olden time! Like 
one of the King Arthur’s knights . . .” 

“Like one,” he growled, deep down in his throat, 
angrily, “who saw another Lynette across the four fords ? 
That’s not true, girl; else he would not have forsaken 
you so long! Nor would he have given up so easily 
when, in your view, I beat him down and sent him up 
over the ridge!” 

“He’ll come back!” 

“You think so ?” 

“/ know!” 

Chance remarks of hers . . . this one above all others 
. . . rankled. She seemed so confident that Babe 
Deveril would come again, that he would carry in his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


265 

breast the memory of sweet hours with her, that he would 
never rest until he, with her pleading eyes tender upon 
his, could rescue her from the bondage which Bruce 
Standing had set upon her! So it came about that 
nightly, and all night long, Bruce Standing dreamed of 
Babe Deveril and of battling with him and of beating 
him finally into such definite defeat as had not resulted 
from that other fierce struggle before her widening eyes. 

Another day went by and another, with Bruce Stand¬ 
ing obsessed, knowing himself for a man who yearned 
with all his soul for one thing and one thing only, a 
mere slip of a gray-eyed girl who made madness in his 
pulses. He had his moods of fierceness; on their heels 
came those other moods of tenderness. More than once 
he came toward her, striding through the woods, his 
mind made up to set her free, asking only her happiness. 
And then he saw her; and in his heated fancies he saw 
Babe Deveril; and he named Deveril a man of slight 
manhood and swore by his own manhood that never 
would he show so lax and flabby a hand as to let this 
priceless girl, drop into the graceful, careless hand of any 
Babe Deveril who ever lived. 

^^He’d never know how to love her as I do!” That 
ancient cry of all true lovers! 

But all the while there bit into him doubtings, fears, 
those manifold darts flung from love’s alter ego, jealousy. 
He stood ready to give this girl fuU-handedly every¬ 
thing; from her he craved with that direst of all cravings, 
everything. . . . And when he could no longer hold 
back the tumult within him and demanded: ‘^What of 
this Baby Devil ?” putting a sneer into his voice, always 
she cried out warmly: ^‘A true friend and a gentleman!” 

All unexpected by both of them, the less by him than 
her, Billy Winch, Timber-Wolf’s one-legged retainer, 


266 


TIMBER-WOLF 


rode full tilt into camp. They were lunching; they sat 
under a tree in the noonday shadow like two at picnic. 
He had been saying: ^‘We’re running short of rations.’' 
Then it was that Billy Winch, anxiously spurring a big 
roan saddle-horse, rode down upon them and, seeing 
them, began waving his hat high over his head in sweep¬ 
ing, joyous circles and shouting: 

‘‘So you’re still alive! That’s something!” 

“You fool! Who told you to come here!” 

Standing leaped to his feet; he was hot with anger. 

“I knew where to find you, Timber!” cried Billy 
Winch gleefully. “Unless, a fair bet, the devil had 
claimed you and taken you down under, I knew I’d find 
you here! . . . How’s the sick wing ? Been usin’ my 
salve ? Night and morning, keepin’ it clean and ...” 

Billy Winch, headlong, stopping his horse with a sud¬ 
den pluck of the reins when the gaunt roan had come 
near setting his four flickering hoofs in their midday fire, 
chose to ignore the fact that the Timber-Wolf was not 
alone. 

But Standing, springing up, strode out to meet him, 
his mien anything but friendly. 

“Damm you, Billy Winch,” he muttered between his 
teeth, too low for the wondering Lynette to hear. She, 
too, had sprung up and stood leaning against the valiant 
pine-tree, wondering swiftly how this latest happening, 
the coming of Billy Winch into the wild-wood, was to 
affect her. 

Bniy Winch, as gay-hearted a rascal as ever stumped 
on one leg or rode a wild, half-broken horse in carelessly 
lopsided fashion, laughed gleefully. 

“Ho, Timber!” he cried. “If I was a whole man, 
’stead of half a one, I’d just jump down and naturally 
beat you to death! Bein’ what I am, all carved to 
thunder, you’re too much all gone to proud flesh to 


TIMBER-WOLF 


267 

jerk me out of the saddle to stomp on me! So I got the 
age on you! And I asks you, Johnny Wolf, man-eater, 
how^s tricks?” 

^‘By God, Winch!” Standing in upstarting wrath 
had the roan horse by the bit, shoving it back with one 
savage hand so that it fell back on its haunches. Just 
because IVe stood a lot off you . . .” 

^‘Slow does it, Timber 1” cried Winch. ‘‘This is busi¬ 
ness. IVe got a man back there, just out of sight, ready 
to go clean crazy unless he can have a word with you. 
To put a name to him . . . well, then, Mexicali Joel” 

Now Standing, deep down within him, knew why 
Billy Winch had come. Never did more faithful heart 
beat in human breast than that heart thrumming away 
beneath Billy Winch’s faded blue shirt. Winch, having 
always a shrewd guess where to find his chief, when 
Standing took it upon himself to disappear from head¬ 
quarters, had caught at the first excuse to come in person 
and make sure with his own keen eyes that all went well 
with a man whom many hated and whom he, above all 
men, loved. 

“Hang Mexicali Joe to the first stout limb you come 
to!” 

Lynette, of impulses ungovernable, could have broken 
into laughter. For the amazing thing was that what 
Bruce Standing, impatient almost to fury, said he meant. 
He had suffered enough inconvenience at Mexicali Joe’s 
hands; he wanted nothing of the man nor of his dross of 
gold. 

Winch did laugh aloud. And then, keen-eyed to see 
the play of his employer’s expression, he grew sober and 
said earnestly: 

“On the level, Mr. Standing, how’s the hurt cornin’ 
along? Been usin’ the salve I told you to ?” 

Lynette, though he had ignored her presence or be- 


268 TIMBER-WOLF 

cause of this very attitude of his, could not hold back 
from exclaiming: 

^‘He has two wounds now! Another shot in the back! 
And he gives them less attention than a sane man would 
give a cut finger! ’’ 

‘‘The old fool! No more sense than a rabbit! Shot 
again ? Twice in the back ? Plugged a second time ? 
The old fool!’’ 

Like a flash in his quick movements he was down from 
the saddle; he left his horse with dragging reins to wait 
for him; over the uneven ground he came forward rapidly, 
queerly, hopping like an oddly oversized bird. He 
caught at Standing’s shoulder, crying out: 

“Let me see them hurts 1 I tell you, I got to see them 
hurts! Shot twice from behind ? You bloody baby. Let 
me look at ’em. Blood poison most likely settin’ in!” 

“I could kill you . . . you interfering fool . . .” 

But just then Billy Winch’s one foot caught at a root 
and he came near falling, and Standing, instead of carry¬ 
ing out a threat, sprang toward him and steadied him; 
and Lynette saw a sincere rough affection in the way 
the big arms closed about Winch’s body. Friends, these 
two. 

“Who plugged you, Timber? And for the love of 
Mike, how come you to let it happen . . . twice? But 
tell me: Who plugged you the second time ?” 

“Taggart,” said Standing; “at least that’s my bet. 
And,” he added hastily, “it was Taggart that shot me 
the first time, through the window at Gallup’s! ” 

Billy Winch looked sharp incredulity; his eyes flick¬ 
ered away to Lynette as he gave sign of seeing her for 
the first time. 

“But, man! I thought . . .” 

“You thought wrong! She did not shoot me. You’ve 
got my word for that. Bill. She did not shoot meV 


TIMBER-WOLF 


269 


Winch looked perplexed. 

^‘Sure, Timber?’’ he demanded. ‘^Dead sure?” 

‘"Yes,” said Standing. “Taggart didn’t believe I had 
already changed my papers, ruling his name out. If he 
could have dropped me and made it seem clear that she 
had done it . . . See it, Bill?” 

“Well,” said Winch slowly, “I guess you know or you 
wouldn’t say so. And Jim Taggart was a real man once. 
But I’ve seen signs of late; he’s mildewed inside, clean 
through. As comes of running with such as Young 
Gallup.” 

Suddenly he whipped off his battered hat and turned 
a pair of bright and smiling, and at last warmly admiring 
eyes upon Lynette. 

“I beg your pardon. Miss,” he said genially. 

“Now,” said Standing. “About this Mexicali Joe. 
You go back and tell him for me . . 

Winch interrupted quickly, saying: 

“ No use. Timber. You got to see him. I tell you he’s 
clean crazy to see you; he’ll stick on your trail until he 
finds you. He wants only ten minutes; five would do 
it.” 

Lynette was mildly surprised to see Standing so easily 
persuaded; but she had no way of knowing the relation¬ 
ship of this man and his chief henchman nor how Billy 
Winch never took it upon himself to suggest unless he 
knew what he was about. 

“All right,” said Standing, though he frowned as he 
spoke. “ Go get your man.” 

Winch jerked his head about and shouted; his long, 
halloing call pierced clear through the woodland silences. 

“Hi, Joe! This way, on the run! Pronto, hombrel” 

Joe came almost immediately, mounted on a scrawny 
mulish-looking horse, breaking an impatient way through 
the brush. His dark face still carried a frightened, fur- 


270 


TIMBER-WOLF 


live expression which had not been absent from it for a 
matter of days; not since a handful of raw gold had been 
spilled from his torn pocket. 

^^Senorl’’ he cried ringingly from a distance. ^^Senor 
Caballero ! I tell you, they keel me! I got no chances! 
For sure, they keel me, robbers!” 

Standing answered roughly: “And what do I care? 
Serve you right for the fool you are!” 

“Now, he’s here,” said Winch. “Look here. Timber: 
you can take your time talking to him. Let me look 
you over. I want to see that second bullet hole.” 

“Winch, you idiot,” Standing growled at him; “I got 
it close to a week ago. I’ve tended to it myself; it’s all 
right. I don’t look like a dying man, do I ?” 

\^SenorC^ Joe was crying, down on the ground now, 
tremendously excited. 

“Are you usin’ my salve?” demanded Winch. 
“Plenty of it, night and morning?” 

“I have been using it. . . .” 

“And you’re out of it nowV^ With a triumphant 
flourish Winch dipped into a pocket and extracted a 
small package. “Here you are. Timber! And this is 
extra special! I got all the ingredients this time; tried 
it out day before yesterday on that new pinto pony you 
bought from Ferguson; got cut in the wire fence down by 
the pasture. Say, it works like magic. ...” 

Standing groaned. “Winch, some fine day I’ll carve 
.you all up with a hand-axe, just to give you a chance to 
use your own filthy mess. . . .” 

“I wouldn’t have been shy a leg, would I, if that fool 
doctor had had a pint of this?” 

^^Senorl” Joe was crying. “You got to listen; you 
got to hear what I goin’ tell you! My gold, my gold 
that I find, me, myself, all alone . . .” 

“What do I care for you or your gold!” cried Stand- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


271 


ing. ‘‘I don’t need it, do I ? I don’t ask you anything 
about it, do I ? I don’t want to know anything about 
it! Go wallow in your gold and leave me alone!” 

But Joe explained, growing vehement to the point of 
wildness; as Winch had put it, ‘‘he was clean crazy over 
the thing.” How could Joe wallow in it, much as he 
would like to, when always there were men like ugly 
hounds on his trail? What chance had he, poor devil 
that he styled himself, against such men as Jim Taggart 
and Young Gallup and Cliff Ship ton and Babe Deveril 
and Bamy McCuin. . . . He named a score. At the 
name of Babe Deveril Standing’s eyes flashed and sped 
to a meeting with Lynette’s; into hers, too, came a quick 
light. Joe had caught Standing’s interest. 

“What about these men?” he asked. “What about 
Deveril ? ” 

“Him? The worst of them all!” wailed Joe. He 
went on, bursting with all the things he had to tell. 
That night when, for a second time, like God himself, 
the grand Senor Caballero had burst into the cabin and 
set him free, he had run 1 God, how he had run! But 
then he had thought of his savior alone against so many 
hard, merciless men; he had come to a sudden stop, say¬ 
ing to himself: “Joe, mi amigo, you must not desert 
him!” And then, of a sudden, had that young devil 
Deveril burst from the bushes upon him . . . and Joe 
had fled again and Deveril had sought after him. There 
was no shaking off this man; twice since then in the 
forest Joe had barely escaped him. . . . Lynette had 
come close, was listening breathlessly. 

“I tell you where my gold is!” cried Joe. “You take 
what you like, I don’t care! You give me what you 
like ... I know you for one fair man. That way we 
save it. Any other way, they get me; they burn me 
with fire; they break my teeth and my fingers; they make 


272 TIMBER-WOLF 

me tell! And they get it all. Taggart and Gallup and 
Deveril and . . 

He broke off, half whimpering, cursing them with all 
the eloquence of the Latin tongue. 

Clearly Standing hesitated. Then, amazing them all, 
but with his own mind clear, he said bluntly: 

“ Clear out! It’s your game. I don’t want to know 
anything about it.” 

down in Light Ladies^ Gulch V* screamed Joe. 
'^Not two mile from Big Pine! I lied to them ... a 
big pine, with crooked roots sticking out ... a wash¬ 
out. . . . Last year I make mistake; I think down 
under the Red Cliffs. But this time I find . . . four 
miles the other side. . . .” 

^^Why, you shrivelled-souled ...” 

Then suddenly Standing caught himself up short; there 
came a new look into his eyes; he shouted, catching Joe 
by the shoulder: 

Light Ladies^ Canon I Just across from Big Pine? 
Only a mile or two 1” 

^‘As God hears me, Senor!” 

Standing broke into sudden laughter. He clapped 
Joe upon the shoulder so that the little man staggered 
and paled under the jovial blow. 

“With bells on! With bells, Mexico! By high 
Heaven . . . Here, you. Winch! On the run, back to 
headquarters. Take Joe with you; mount guard over 
him night and day with a rifle. No man to have a word 
with him. And wait for me. And, all the while. Bill 
Winch, heep your mouth shut I 

Winch, with one arm out as a brace against a pine, 
stiffened. 

“I guess I know how to take orders, Mr. Standing,” 
he said, and his tone sounded angry. “You don’t 
need . . .” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


273 


Him also Standing smote on the shoulder. 

“Why, God bless you, Bill Winch, you’re the only man 
on earth I’d trust! Those last words weren’t neces¬ 
sary. . . . You’re right and I apologize for them 1 
But now, go I Go, I tell you; I’ll do anything you say; 
I’ll use your poison on me three times a day. . . . I’ll 
eat it, if you say so 1 Only hit the high spots and keep 
Mexicali under cover imtil I come 1 No matter when or 
how long; there’s your job . . . old friend!” 

Billy Winch, galvanized, went hopping to his horse; 
he flipped after his own fashion up into the saddle; he 
loosened the rifle in its holster strapped conveniently; 
he called to Joe: 

“Quick does it, Mexico! We’re on our way!” 

Bruce Standing watched them ride away among the 
trees and stood laughing! He had succeeded in puzzling 
two men; most of all had he set Lynette wondering. . . . 


CHAPTER XXII 


“I WANT a good long drink of fresh water,” said 
Standing. ^‘And you, after this lunch of ours, will be 
thirsty. Let’s go down to the creek; down there, by 
the waterfall, after weVe drunk, I want to talk with 
you.” 

He had turned to her, that flash still in his eyes, be¬ 
fore Billy Winch and Mexicali Joe had ridden a dozen 
yards out of camp. She looked at him in silence, won¬ 
dering what lay in his thoughts; what had been the 
sudden, compelling, and triumphant motive to actuate 
him when with his great shout of laughter he had dis¬ 
missed the two men. He had Joe’s secret now; she 
shared it herself: The gold was far from here and very 
near Big Pine; in Light Ladies’ Canon! The strange 
part of it was that Taggart’s first surmise, when he 
and his companions had trapped Mexicali Joe at the 
dugout, was that it was in Light Ladies’ Canon that 
he had made his strike I . . . How many men and at 
least one girl had travelled how many wilderness miles 
from Big Pine, when the gold lay so snugly close to the 
starting-point 1 How Joe had tricked his captors, lead¬ 
ing them so far afield! 

‘‘If I should escape from you now,” Lynette could 
not help crying, “what is there to prevent me from 
staking the first claim ? And bringing my friends . . . 
to stake claims 1” 

“If you should happen to escape me! ” he laughed back 
at her. 

Then he stepped to the tree where his rifle stood and 
called to Thor as he did always when he left the dog in 
camp: “Watch, Thor! Watch, sir.” 

274 


TIMBER-WOLF 


275 

It was not always that he carried his rifle. He ex¬ 
plained, while he looked to her to come with him. 

“We’ll talk things over; but in any case it’s clear that 
we’re getting short of food. Maybe, while we talk, we 
can bring down something in the way of provisions with 
a lucky shot.” 

Willing enough was she to-day for talk; at least to 
listen to whatever he might say. She followed, stopping 
only to stoop and pat old Thor’s head; already she 
counted the faithful brute a friend. Thor tried to lick 
her hand; for already Thor, like Thor’s master, had 
bestowed an abiding love to the first true girl who had 
ever intimately entered the life of either. Thor wanted 
to follow; he whined and looked anxious, ears pricked 
forward, tail wagging. 

“Down, Thor,” commanded Standing, if only because 
already he had issued his command. “You watch camp 
for us; watch, Thor.” 

Thor dropped down at the entrance of Lynette’s 
grotto; for one instant his great head lay between his fore¬ 
paws; then he jerked it up again so that he might watch 
them as they went through the thickets to the creek. 

Standing carried a cup with him. When they came to 
the waterfall leaping down a twenty-foot rocky spillway, 
glassily clear, making a pigmy thunder in the narrow- 
walled ravine, he rinsed and filled his cup and gave it 
to Lynette. She drank. Thereafter, and with no further 
rinsing, he drank. She sat upon a big rock, leaning 
back against a leaning tree trunk; he sat down close 
enough to her to allow of words carrying above the 
thunder of the falling waters and filled his after-lunch 
pipe. 

“I know as much as you do of the place to find the 
gold!” she told him again. “And I, though a girl, 
have as much interest in a fortune to be made as any 


276 TIMBER-WOLF 

man can have. That^s fair warning to you, Bruce 
Standing 

He laughed carelessly. Then he said: 

“IFs neither your gold nor mine. By right of dis¬ 
covery, it belongs to a little shrimp named Mexicali Joe 
Alguna-Cosa. Our hands are off, so far as our own 
pockets are concerned.’^ 

‘^But . . . You took quick interest when you learned 
where it was! You have some plan . . . you com¬ 
manded your friend Billy Winch to keep Joe well 
guarded!” 

His eyes were twinkling; and greed does not light 
twinkling lights 1 

I’ve got gold of my own, girl 1 Gold enough to last 
me my life and you your life and both of us together 
our lives I And to leave a decent residuum after us. . . . 
But let’s talk of Mexicali Joe’s gold some other time. 
To-day . . . We have ourselves!” 

“You have yourself!” cried Lynette with sudden 
bitterness. “I have not even my own personal lib¬ 
erty!” 

“And what if I let you go, girl ? As I have a mind 
to do to-day ? What then ? Where would you go ? 
Where would I find you again ? For find you I must and 
will though ‘it were ten thousand mile.’ ” 

“Am I to suffer your dictation during the days of 
actual imprisonment at your hands, and then, for all 
time afterward, render you an accounting of my ac¬ 
tions!” 

“Why do you try to hate me so, girl ?” 

“Why should I not hate you ?” 

“What have I done to you ? Have I done anything 
more than put out a hand to stop time, to snatch time 
for you and me, for us to know! . . . Look you, girl, 
a man, at least a man of my sort, may go a third of his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


277 


life or a fourth or a full half, and know much less than 
nothing of what a true girl is! How can he know? 
Already I have learned that you have instincts which 
leap; a man gropes like a blind mole and it takes him a 
long time to teach himself to see the stars . . . the star 1 
Now it’s a fair bet, and no odds given or taken, that 
one Bruce Standing happened to be an unruly devil, a 
blunt man, a man who has as a part and parcel of his 
religion to shoot square and to hit hard, so long as God 
lets him. I’ve done wrong and I’ve done right, and I’m 
doing as all the rest of the great mass, in a state of flux, 
is doing; growing up from the mud into something better. 
If not in this life or the next, well then, since the mills 
grind with exceeding patience, in some other life. At 
least I’m honest; at least, in plain English, I do my 
damnedest! Take it or leave it, there’s the truth. If 
it happens that I’m a man of few friends. . . . Almost 
you can count ’em on Billy Winch’s one leg! ... if few 
men love me and many men hate . . .” 

“Yes!” cried Lynette, and her own earnestness was 
caught and compelled by his own. “Most men, many, 
many men, hate you! . . . And yet you have it within 
you to make them love you!” 

“Love and hate! What have I to do with the loves 
and hates of men as I know them ? Shall I step to 
right or to left for all that ? I play out my part in the 
eternal game. I live my life!” 

“But you don’t live your life! You miss . . . every¬ 
thing ! If you would but be kind instead of cruel; open- 
hearted and generous always . . . you have in you the 
seeds of all that. Then men might come to know the 
real you; you could make them love instead of hate.. ..” 

But his eyes stabbed at her like quickened blue flames. 

“So !” he said, and his tone was one of bitter mockery. 
“If I choose to pay them for the pretty, empty compli- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


278 

ment, they will call me a good fellow and . . . love me! 
If I kick them they will call me villain and hate me. 
And there you have the epitome of that so-called love 
and hate of mankind which sickens me. Ill be eternally 
damned before I prostitute my immortal soul to pitch 
pennies out for a peck of treacherous hearts. For, I 
tell you, girl . . . Only Girl . . . the love that is to be 
bought is to be spat upon. I’ll have none of it. Even 
your love, that I’d give my soul to have freely, I’d 
have none of if it were to be bought.” 

Lynette looked at him strangely, half pityingly. 
And she answered him softly: 

“You twist things out of all reason to make, to your¬ 
self, your own acts appear something other than they 
are.” 

“A girl trying to turn logician?” he laughed at her, 
teasing. 

Little effort on his part was required to set fire to her 
quick inflammable temper. 

“It’s magnanimous of you to jeer at me,” she re¬ 
torted hotly. “Because you have the physical strength 
of a beast and the beast’s lack of understanding. . . .” 

Now his golden outburst of laughter stopped her. He 
shouted: 

“See! There you go! As if to preach me the final 
word of love and hate! You’d hate me now, just be¬ 
cause I tease you! If I said, with poets’ roses twining 
through the saying, that you were most beautiful and 
no-end intellectual and beyond that of the heart of an 
angel, could you not better tolerate me ? And thus we 
come to the open pathway to most human loves and 
hates; two little doors standing side by side. For, I ask 
you, going back to your challenge to make men love 
rather than despise me, what in the devil’s name is that 
sort of love but transplanted self-love ? A damned-fool 


TIMBER-WOLF 


279 


sort of selfishness masking like a hypocrite as something 
quite different. ... If you loved a man who beat you 
there would be something worth while in that sort of 
loving; something divorced from plain selfishness and 
the eternal I-want-to-get-all-I-can-out-of-everything! 
Now, I love you! I love you so that my love for you 
comes near killmg me! It gets me by the throat at 
night. That’s love; and there’s less of self in it, I swear 
to you, than there is of . . . youl” 

‘^Youl You talk of love. To me!” 

She broke into her light, taunting laughter. And yet 
he had set her heart beating and the ancient fear . . . 
not fear of him . . . was upon her. ^^You, talking of 
love, are like a blind man lecturing on the colors of the 
rainbow! You . . .” 

But he had started to his feet; his eyes went suddenly 
toward the camp, all sight of which they had lost on 
coming down into the creek bed. 

“Listen!” he cried. “What was that?” 

She had heard nothing; nothing above the splash and 
fall of water . . . and the beating of her own heart. 

“Listen!” he said the second time. 

“What is it ?” 

He caught up his rifle and leaped across the creek. 
He began running, back toward their camp. 

“It’s old Thor . . . there’s some one ...” 

And now, Lynette realized clearly, had come her first 
opportunity to be free again! While Bruce Standing, 
because of something he had heard above the merry- 
mad music of the waterfall, or had thought he had heard, 
was running back to their encampment, she could run 
in the opposite direction. She stood balancing, of this 
mind and that. What had he heard in camp ? What 
was happening there? As always, because of that vola¬ 
tile nature of hers which was en rapport with life’s puls- 


28 o 


TIMBER-WOLF 


ings, she wanted to know! And then there was a cer¬ 
tain assurance in her heart that after all these days the 
budding intention in Bruce Standing’s heart was burst¬ 
ing into full flower to set her free again! She hesitated; 
she saw him running up the steep bank, charging back 
toward camp, vanishing among the trees higher up on 
the slope. 

And, then, she followed him. 

. . . Before Lynette came, through the trees, within 
sight of the grotto which Standing had given over to 
her, she heard a sound which brought her, wondering, 
from swift haste to lingering; she stood, her breathing 
stilled, listening, groping a moment blindly for an in¬ 
terpretation of that sound for its explanation. Harsh 
it was . . . terrible . . . never had she heard anything 
like it. At first she did not recognize it as a sound man¬ 
made. She paused; she came a step nearer, peering 
through the trees. . . . 

It was an inarticulate, stifled sound coming from the 
lips of Bruce Standing! He was kneeling on the ground, 
bending forward. He had dropped his rifle. There 
was something in his arms, upgathered into his embrace, 
something held as a baby is held in its mother’s arms.... 

Thor. . . . 

And those sounds from Bruce Standing’s lips! There 
were tears in them; his voice was shaken. He held Thor 
to him in a fierce agony of sorrow. . . . 

Lynette came closer, tiptoeing. She heard the sounds 
as they seemed to choke him, clutching like hands at 
his throat. And then suddenly, before she caught her 
first clear view, she knew when, into that first emotion 
there swept the second; when with the shock of deep 
grief there mingled white-hot rage. He began to mut¬ 
ter again ... he was lisping . . . lisping as she had 
heard him do only once before . . . lisping because his 


TIMBER-WOLF 


281 


one weakness had leaped out and caught him unaware. 
Lisping curses. . . . 

She ran closer. She saw old Thor, Thor who had 
learned to love her and whom she had learned to love, 
lying limp in Standing’s arms. Thor dead? Some one 
had killed him, then, and Standing, above the booming 
of the waterfall, had heard? A sight, perhaps, to stir 
that wild, uncontrollable laughter of Lynette! The 
sight of a big, strong man half weeping over a dead dog 
in his arms. ... Yet, when she came running to him 
and dropped down on her knees and put out her quick 
hand and Standing turned his face toward her ... he 
saw that this time there was no laughter in her. In¬ 
stead, her eyes were wet with a sudden dash of tears. 

“He’s not dead ... we won’t have it that he’s dead! 
Thor!” she cried softly. 

She did not realize that she had put her warm, sym¬ 
pathetic hand on Standing’s arm before her other hand 
found the old dog’s head. 

“Thor! . . . Thor!” 

Thor looked up at her; at Standing. The dog tried to 
stir; the faithful tongue strove to overmaster the terrible 
inertia laid upon it; to grant in last adulation the last 
farewell. For a stricken dog, like a stricken man, knows 
after the way of all creatures which have the spark of 
eternity within them, when the day’s end is in doubt. . .. 

Standing tried to speak . . . and grew silent. Flow 
she hated herself then for that other time when he had 
slipped, through sorrowing rage, into his one unmanly 
failing . . . and she had laughed! Her tears began 
running down. He saw; he jerked his head about, focus¬ 
sing his eyes upon the eyes of a dog that he loved; a 
dog that had been faithful to him. 

“Where is he hurt ? He can’t be shot,” cried Lynette. 
“We would have heard a shot! If he is poisoned . . .” 


282 TIMBER-WOLF 

Standing had mastered himself. He said coldly. 

‘‘Look!^’ 

“Who did . . . that?^^ 

“If I only knew! My God, if I only knewF^ 

Thor was not dead; his body jerked and quivered 
now and again, in spasms. Yet he seemed to be dying. 
And it grew clear to Lynette, as, at a glance, it had been 
clear to Standing, what had happened. Thor had been 
left in charge of camp; but the one word had rung in 
the faithful head: “Watch 1^^ And then some one had 
come; Thor had been true to his trust; some man had 
struck him down with club or a rifle barrel; had struck 
and struck again. Thor’s fore leg was broken; he had 
been battered over the head . . . bones were broken, 
the skull seemed crushed . . . the dog stiffened; fell 
back. . . . 

“Dying,” said Standing, still on his knees. He placed 
old Thor very gently on the ground, striving after his 
own rough fashion to make a dog’s last few minutes of 
breathing no more tormenting than was inevitable. 

“Thor,” said Standing gently. “Good old Thor!” 

The dog tried to rouse. The old faithful head on 
Standing’s knee stirred ever so little. The old steadfast 
eyes, red-rimmed but clear-sighted, were on Standing’s. 
If ever a dog could have spoken. . . . 

Standing, with sudden thought, jumped to his feet. 

“There’s a chance for him yet! There is Billy Winch, 
the one man on earth to save a dying dog or horse. . . . 
Yes, or man!” 

He cupped his hands at his mouth and sent forth, 
piercing through the leafy silences, that wild wolf-call 
which must bring Winch about in short order ... if 
he was not already too far to hear it. 

“He may be too far,” cried Lynette. Already she 
was down upon her knees, taking his place and gather- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


283 

ing Thor’s head into her lap. Hurry. If you can find 
your horse and ride after him, surely you can overtake 
him.” 

^^God bless you!” He began running. But before 
a dozen swift steps were taken he stopped and came 
back to her, muttering: ^‘But the man who did this 
for Thor? He’ll not be far away; I can’t leave 
you. . . 

‘T am not afraid of a man like him,” said Lynette. 

A coward, or he would not have done this. . . . Leave 
me your rifle and hurry 1” 

‘‘You’ll wait for me, no matter what happens?” 

“Of course I’ll wait. Now, hurryV'* 

He placed his rifle at her side and with never a back¬ 
ward look was away again on a run, breaking through 
breast-high brush; splashing once again across the creek, 
calling to Winch as he ran. ... He would be back 
with her almost immediately. . . . 

So he plowed through the thickets; plunged down a 
slope, sped up a slope, raced over a ridge. And, now 
with what breath was left in his lungs, he began to send 
out his whistled call. That summons, which his horse, 
if still lingering in these upland meadows, would wel¬ 
come with quick response. 

Lynette stooped and laid her cheek against the 
grizzled old face of Thor. And then, with a sudden 
access of emotion, she burst into fresh tears. . . . Thor 
tried to wag his tail. . . . Lynette, like Standing be¬ 
fore her, felt that the dog was dying. 

“Thor!” she whispered. “Can’t you hold on? 
Can’t you carry on ? He will bring Billy Winch and 
Billy Winch will help us. . . .” 

Then there burst upon her a surprise which moved her 
immeasurably. There, almost at her side, stood Babe 
Deveril! A moment ago she was alone in the wilder- 


284 


TIMBER-WOLF 


ness with a dying dog; now Babe Deveril stood close to 
her. With Thor’s head still held in her lap she looked 
up into his face. She saw that it was tense, the muscles 
drawn, the eyes hard and bright. 

^^Lynette!” he cried softly. ^‘Lynette! I’ve fol¬ 
lowed you half around the world! And now. . . . 
Come quick! We go free and the world is ours!” 

She sat, staring up at him, still bewildered. 

^^You!” she whispered. ^^And . . . then it was you 
. . . who did this?” 

He caught her meaning; he glanced down at the thick 
green club in his hands. 

“I came to do what I could for you. That ugly brute 
stood up against me. I had no gun; I knew Standing 
was armed. I thought that maybe he had left his rifle 
in camp.” 

‘‘What did Thor do to you that you should have done 
this to him ?” 

“Thor? That dog? He showed teeth and . . . 
Look here, Lynette Brooke; now’s your one chance. 
I’ve gone through hell to come to you. . . .” 

“Tell me,” she cried. “When did you come ? . . .” 

Deveril was as tense as a finely drawn steel wire. 
Again she marked that hard glint in his dark eyes. 

“It is up to you to do the telling!” he shot back at 
her. “I stood back there in the trees; I saw that damned 
henchman of his and Mexicali Joe come up to you 1 
Joe, I’ve been following for days! I had no rifle; no 
weapon of any kind and both Standing and Winch were 
armed. But I could watch! Joe was terribly excited; 
I saw his waving arms. I heard him yelling. . . .” 

“Yes,” said Lynette. “And then ?” 

“And then?” exclaimed Deveril. “What then? 
You know what we came for, don’t you ? You as well 
as I?” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


285 


‘^Yes! I know. . . 

He caught at her hand. 

“Cornel On the run. Before that madman gets 
back. We’ll clean up on the whole crowd of them!” 

But she jerked her hand away. 

“There are certain things I don’t understand. . . . 
Did you see the other night when he took MexicaK Joe 
out of their hands ?” 

“I saw; yes. It happened that I had just overhauled 
them at that minute! I could have cried for rage 1 He 
had a rifle, damn him, and was aching to use it! They 
laid down before him like pups. . . 

And youV^ 

“What could I do, with a rotten stick in my hands!” 

She looked up at him curiously. 

“And, to-day?” x 

“To-day?” His hands hardened in his grip upon 
his club. “To-day, I tell you, I followed them into 
your camp and I saw. Mexicali Joe . . .” 

“You are after Mexicali Joe’s gold. Babe Deveril?” 

“As you are! That brought us both into Big Pine 
in the beginning and then into the rest of it.” 

“And you were . . . afraid to come into camp while 
Bruce Standing v/as still here?” 

He laughed at her, the old light laughter of debonair 
Babe Deveril. 

“Afraid? Call it that if you like.” He shrugged 
carelessly. “Yet, with an oak club against a man with 
a modern rifle. . . .” 

“Do you remember the last time? How he threw 
his rifle away?” 

Deveril flushed hotly. 

“Some day,” he muttered, “when it’s an even 
break . . .” 

“What do you want with me, Babe Deveril?” 


286 


TIMBER-WOLF 


He stared at her. 

‘‘Want with you? I want you to come, to be free 
from this Timber-Wolf. Is he coming back soon?” 

“I think so.” 

“Then hurry. Lynette . . .” 

“Well?” 

“Are you coming?” 

She stooped over Thor. 

“No,” she said quietly. 

^^What! After all this . . . YouTe not coming?” 

“No!” 

“But . . . Then why?” he demanded with a sud¬ 
den flare of anger. 

“For one thing,” she told him without looking up, 
“because I told him that I would wait for him. For 
another ...” 

“And that is ? . . .” 

She only shook her head, brown hair tumbling about 
her hidden face. 

“I’ll stay with old Thor,” she said. 

She had him cast away among the lost isles of bewil¬ 
derment. 

“But you’ll tell me . . . You and I have been friends; 
we’ve stood side by side ...” He broke off to de¬ 
mand: “You’ll tell me about Mexicali Joe’s gold ?” 

“Gold?” she said. “Is gold the greatest thing in 
life?” 

“But you know ?” 

“Yes! I know.” 

“Then listen: Taggart and Gallup and Ship ton and a 
thousand other men are going crazy to find out! You 
and I can turn the whole trick if luck is good. . . . 
Why, we’ll quit millionaires, Lynette!” 

A shudder shot through the tortured body of old Thor. 
Lynette’s long lashes lifted, wet with her tears. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


287 


There are things . . . beyond millions. . . 

‘‘I don’t get you to-day!” 

“Why did you kill this dog.? What good did it do 
you ? What harm had he ever done you ?” 

“He was in my way. I thought, I told you, that a 
rifle might have been left behind. And . . . it’s Stand¬ 
ing’s dog, anyway! And, beyond that, no matter how 
you look at it, only a dog. . . 

“I think,” said Lynette, and there was no music in 
her voice now and no warmth in the eyes which she 
lifted briefly to his, “that you had better go ! Had you 
come, without rifle, upon Bruce Standing, at least he 
would have thrown his rifle away to fight with you! 
You know that. And . . . and I am not going to go 
with you, having given my promise. And I’ll warn you 
of this: If he comes back and finds you here and knows 
you for the man who killed Thor. . . . He will kill you 1” 

Never in all his daredevil life had Babe Deveril made 
pretense at striking the angelic attitude. Now, in a 
rush of feeling, he grew black with anger and there came 
a look into his eyes which put the hottest flush of all her 
life into Lynette’s cheeks, as he cried out: 

“Tamed you, has he ? So Timber-Wolf has taken a 
mate after the fashion of wolves! And I, fool that I 
v/as, let you slip through my fiingers!” 

She did not answer him. Had she answered she 
could have said: “You could have returned to fight with 
him; man to man and him wounded! Later, when he 
snatched !Me:dcali Joe from them, you could have fought 
with him. You could have followed him here, seeking 
me; and you followed Joe, seeking gold. You could have 
fought with him to-day; and instead you held back and 
spied and killed his dog and waited for him to go 1 . . .” 
So Lynette, stooping low over Thor’s battered head, 
made no answer. 


288 


TIMBER-WOLF 


. . . She knew that Babe Deveril was no coward. 
She would always remember how he had hurled that 
gun into Taggart’s face and himself into her adventures, 
reckless and unafraid. Yet Babe Deveril was no such 
man as Bruce Standing; rather was he like a Jim Taggart, 
and Taggart was no coward. But it remained that 
both these men, Deveril and Taggart, were afraid to 
come to grips with that other man, whose fellows named 
him Timber-Wolf. And he, the Timber-Wolf, was not 
afraid of life and all that it bore; and was not afraid 
of sombre death, in which he did not believe; was not 
afraid of God, in whom he trusted. 

“You’ve thrown in with him!” Deveril cried it out 
angrily; his hands were hard upon his club. “Here, I’ve 
given days and days trying to see you through, and 
you’ve kicked in with him against me! He’s had his 
will with you and he’s made you his woman and ...” 

“You’d better go!” 

She was trembling. A spasm shook her, not unlike 
that which convulsed Thor. 

“You won’t come with me then? You’ll stick with 
him ? After he put a chain on you! ” 

“At least he did not stand back and see another man 
put a chain on me!” 

“Is that my answer?” 

“Yes 1 ” she cried in sudden fury. “And now. go !” 

“I’ll go, all right,” said Deveril. And began to laugh. 
All that old light laughter of his, gay and untroubled, 
which so many a time had made dancing echoes in the 
souls of those who heard, bubbled up again. He looked, 
as he had done when first she saw him, a slender, darkly 
handsome and utterly care-free incarnation of debo¬ 
nair insolence. Still striking the right note, he shrugged 
his shoulders and tossed his club away as he said inso¬ 
lently: 


TIMBER-WOLF 


289 

‘‘What need of all this heavy artillery . . . since the 
Queen of my Heart says Nay? I’ll travel light after 
this!” 

He turned away. But at the second step he stopped 
and swung about and told her: 

“I have a guess where Billy Winch will be taking 
Mexicali Joe! And I’ll be in on the final settlement. If 
you, with a rush of blood to the head, throw in with 
Standing, I’ll play the game out! And what will you 
have left to trade to me for the pile I’m going to make 
out of this? ... For I heard, too, when Mexicali 
yelled out! And I’m throwing in with Taggart and 
Gallup, headed straight for Light Ladies’ Gulch!” 

Lynette, unable to see anything in all the wide world 
clearly, could only stoop her head over the stricken 
dog. Her arms tightened about Thor. ... If only 
Billy Winch would come in time, if only Billy Winch 
would save that flickering little fire of life . . . then, 
though she hated all the rest of the world she’d love 
Billy Winch. . . . 


CHAPTER XXIII 


Bruce Standing running, breaking a straight path 
through the brush, came swiftly into the little upper 
valley. When in answer to his whistling his horse came 
trotting up to him, he did not tarry to saddle; he had 
picked up his bridle on his way and now mounted and 
struck off bareback through the woods with no second’s 
delay. 

“ Get into it. Daylight! ” he muttered. We’re riding 

for old Thor to-day!” 

From a distance Billy Winch, hurrying homeward, 
heard that long call he knew so well. He pulled his 
horse down from a steady canter and turned, calling to 
Mexicali Joe to come back with him. Once within 
sight Standing waved and shouted again; Winch and 
Joe sensed urgency and dipped their spurs, riding back 
to a meeting with him. Winch stared and frowned 
while his employer made his curt explanation; Mexicali 
Joe gasped. But neither man had a word to say; 
Standing laid his brief command upon them and the 
three turned back, riding hard, into the mountains. 

Again Standing called, when near enough to camp to 
hope that his voice would carry above the noise of the 
tumbling waterfalls; this time to Lynette, to tell her of 
their coming. He rode ahead; again and again he 
shouted to her; he leaned out to right and left from 
his horse’s back, seeking a glimpse of her through the 
trees. And yet, when they were almost in the camp, 
there still came no answer to his shoutings and he caught 
no glimpse of her. . . . Suddenly, to his fancies, the 
woods seemed strangely hushed—and empty. 

She’s gone,” said Winch carelessly. 

290 


TIMBER-WOLF 


291 


said Standing with such brusque emphasis 
that Winch looked at him wonderingly. “ She said she’d 
wait for us, Bill.” 

But when they drew closer, so close that the various 
familiar camp objects were revealed, and still there was 
no response and no sight of her. Winch muttered: 

“Just the same, gone or not gone, she ain’t here, 
Timber.” 

“I tell you, man,” snapped Standing, “she said she 
would wait. And what she says she will do, she will 
do!” 

Now the three dismounted in the heart of the camp and 
still there was no sign of Lynette. 

“Anyhow,” said Winch, “it’s a dog and not a girl we 
come looking for. Thor’ll be here ... if he’s alive 
yet.” 

“He will be right where I left him.” Standing led the 
way among the big trees, an arm about Billy Winch, 
hopping at his side the last few steps; they saw him look¬ 
ing in all directions and understood that while he led 
them toward Thor he was seeking the girl. But they 
found only the dog lying where he had been struck down; 
Thor barely able to lift his bloody head, his sight dim, 
but his dog’s intelligence telling him that his master had 
come back to liim; Thor whining weakly. Winch 
squatted down at the dog’s side, become upon the in¬ 
stant an impressive diagnostician. 

Standing stood a moment over the two, looking down 
. upon them. Then he turned away, leaving Thor in 
the skilful hands of Winch and hurrying down to the 
creek, seeking Lynette. It was possible, he told him¬ 
self, that she had gone down for a drink; that so near the 
waterfall she had not heard him calling. So he called 
again as he went on and looked everywhere for her. 

But she was not down by the creek and she did not 


292 


TIMBER-WOLF 


answer him from the woods. He came back, up into 
camp, perplexed. Winch was still bending over Thor; 
he was snapping out brusque orders to Joe for hot water 
and soap; Standing heard Mexicali Joe’s mutterings: 

For Dios, I no understan’. Somebody hurt one dog 
an’ we wait, an’ we look for one girl . . . an’ all the 
time I got one meelion dollar gol’-mine down yonder... 

“Shut up,” Winch grunted at him. And, seeing 
Standing coming back: “SayjTimber, we better take this 
dog home with us right away. We can make a sling of 
that canvas of yours, tying either end to our saddle horns, 
making a sort of stretcher; some blankets in it and old 
Thor on top of ’em. And I’ll tell you this: if we get him 
home alive, and I think we will. I’ll keep the life in him.” 

Thor was whining piteously; Winch shook his head; if 
only he had his instruments, his antiseptics, and a bottle 
of chloroform! For here he foresaw such an operation 
as did not come his way every day. 

“Diagnosin’ off-hand,” Winch was telling the unin¬ 
terested Joe, “I’d say here’s the two important facts: 
first, old Thor has been beat unmerciful; his head’s been 
whanged bad, but I don’t believe the skull’s fractured; 
his left fore leg is busted and he may have a cracked 
rib. Second and most important, after all that the old 
devil is alive.” 

Bruce Standing, still seeking Lynette, more than sat¬ 
isfied to have Thor in Billy Winch’s capable hands, 
turned toward the grotto which he had set apart for 
Lynette. And thus upon his first discovery. There was 
a piece of paper tied with a bit of string so that it fluttered 
gently from a low limb where it was inevitable that it 
must be seen. He caught it down eagerly. On the 
scrap of paper were a few pencilled words, v/ritten in a 
girlish-looking hand. At one sweeping glance he read: 

“I have gone back to Babe Deveril. 


Lynette.’^ 


TIMBER-WOLF 


293 


He stood staring incredulously ‘at the thing in his 
hand. Here was a shock which for a moment confused 
him; here was something beyond credence. Lynette 
gone ... to Deveril ? For that first second his brain 
groped blindly rather than functioned normally. Lyn¬ 
ette gone to Babe Deveril . . . that cursed Baby Devil! 
A handsome, graceful, and altogether irresistible young 
devil of a feUow to fill any girl’s eye, to stir vague ro¬ 
mantic longings in her heart. So she had gone to him ? 
He had the proof of it in his hand; a word from her, 
signed with her name. A cruel, chill, heartless message 
of seven meagre words. . . . And she had broken her 
word; she had promised to wait for his return and she 
had not waited. She had left a dying dog to die alone 
and had gone to her lover . . . and she carried with her 
the key to Mexicali Joe’s golden secret ... to turn it 
over to Deveril! 

‘‘What’s eating you. Timber?” shouted Winch. 
“Gone to sleep or what?” 

Standing tossed the scrap of paper away. And then 
suddenly he laughed and both Winch and Joe were 
startled. Bill Winch had heard that laugh once before 
and knew vaguely the sort of emotion which prompted 
it: Standing’s soul was suddenly steeped in rage . . . 
and anguish. . . . 

“We’ll be on our way pretty quick. Timber,” said 
Winch. “We’ll ride slow and you can pick us up in no 
time. And ... if you’ve got anything on your chest, 
any of your own private rat-killing to do, why, me and 
Mexicali will make out fiine as far as headquarters, and 
once there I’ll see old Thor through.” 

Standing only nodded at him curtly and went hur¬ 
riedly to his horse. 


CHAPTER XXIV 


Timber-Wolf, his purposes crystallizing, did not 
attempt to rejoin Winch and Mexicali Joe. By the 
time he had ridden to the spot where his saddle was 
hidden and had thrown it upon Daylight’s back, drawing 
his cinch savagely, he had begun to get his proper per¬ 
spective. He knew that he could trust Billy Winch in 
all things; that Winch, with all of that persevering pa¬ 
tience which the occasion demanded and that veterinary 
skill and love for animals which marked him, would do 
all that any man could to get Thor home and to care 
for him. And now, for Bruce Standing, beyond the 
stricken dog lay other considerations: There remained 
Lynette and Babe Deverill He ground his teeth in 
savage rage and from Daylight’s first leap under him 
rode hard. 

Long before the early sun rose he was back at his own 
headquarters, a man grim and hard and purposeful. 
Rough garbed and still booted he strode through his 
study and into his larger office; and in this environment 
the man’s magnificent virility was strikingly accentu¬ 
ated. Here was his wilderness home, a place of elegance 
and of palpitant centres of numerous large activities; not 
a dozen miles from Big Pine and yet, in all appearances, 
set apart from Young Gallup’s crude town as far as the 
ends of earth. He stood in a great, hard-wooded room 
of orderly tables and desks and telephones and electric 
push-buttons. He set an impatient thumb upon a 
button; at the same moment his other hand caught up 
a telephone instrument. While the push-button still 
sent its urgent message he caught a response from his 
telephone. Into the receiver he called sharply: 

294 


TIMBER-WOLF 


295 

“Bristow? In a hurry, Standing speaking: Give me 
the stables; get Billy Winch 

All the while that insistent thumb of his upon the 
button! There came bursting into the big room, half 
dressed and clutching at his clothes, a young man whose 
eyes were still heavy with sleep. 

“You, Graham,” Standing commanded him. “Get 
busy on our long-distance wire. My lawyers ... Get 
Ben Brewster! It’s the hurry of a lifetime!” 

Young Graham, with suspenders dragging, flew to the 
switchboard. Meantime came a response from the in¬ 
ter-phone connecting him with the stables. 

“BiUy Winch ?” he called. 

“No, sir, Mr. Standing,” said a voice. “This is 
Dick Ross. Bill, he got in late and was up all night 
nearly, working over a bad case that come in. Shall 
I ” 

“That case,” Standing told him abruptly, “was my 
dog, Thor. Find out who was left in charge when Bill 
went to sleep; call me right away and give me a report 
on Thor.” With that he rang off. 

All the while his secretary, Graham, had been plugging 
away at his switchboard. Standing, pacing up and 
down, heard his “Hello—hello—hello.” 

Within three minutes the stable telephone rang 
sharply. Standing caught it up. It was Dick Ross 
again, reporting: 

“Bill didn’t go off the case until three o’clock this 
morning. Had to operate again at about two; taking 
out a little piece of skull bone. He left Charley Peters 
in charge then; Charley’s on the job now.” 

“Thor’s alive then?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Fine! I’ll be out in a few minutes to see him. 
Bill’s got him in the ‘hospital’ ?” 



296 


TIMBER-WOLF 


“ Sure, Mr. Standing. Thor couldn’t be gettin’ better 
care if he was King of England.” 

Standing rang off and came back to Graham from 
whose eyes now all heaviness of sleep had fled, leaving 
them keen and quick. Hardly more than a youngster, 
this Graham, and yet Timber-Wolf’s confidential sec¬ 
retary, trained by Standing himself to Standing’s ways. 

‘‘I’ve got Mr. Brewster’s home on the wire,” said 
Graham looking up. “He’s not up yet but they’re 
calling him. ...” 

Standing took the instrument. 

“I’ll hold it for him. Now, Graham, order breakfast 
served here for you and me; plenty of extra coffee for 
the boys I’ll be having in. . . . Get A1 Blake on our 
wire to Red Creek Mine. . . . Arrange to have Bill 
Winch show up here as soon as he’s awake; he’s to bring 
Ross and Peters with him. . . . And Mexicali Joe; 
make sure that Joe didn’t see any one to talk with last 
night. I want Joe here with Winch. . . . Hello! 
Hello! Is this Ben Brewster ?” 

He heard his lawyer’s voice over the wire; then, some¬ 
where over the long line something went wrong; Brewster 
was gone again. An operator at the end of Standing’s 
own private part of the line, seventy-five miles away, 
was saying: 

“Just a minute, Mr. Standing . . . I’ll get him for 
you. . . .” 

“Thanks, Henry,” said Standing. And while he 
waited for the promised service which was to link him 
with a man nearly two hundred miles away, he was work¬ 
ing hastily with pencil and pad. Graham was already 
carrying out his string of orders, getting dressed with 
one hand meantime. 

“Brewster?” Standing spoke again into the tele¬ 
phone. “I’ve got something big and urgent on. Can 


TIMBER-WOLF 


297 


you come up right away ? Take a car to Placer Hill. 
I’ll have a man meet you there with a saddle-horse, and 
you’ll have to ride the last twenty miles in. We’re 
forming a new mining company; I want to shoot it 
through one-two-three 1 Bring what papers we’ll want; 
that will be all the baggage you need to stop for. Graham 
will have all particulars ready for you. Thanks, Ben. 
So long. 

“Graham!” 

Graham swung about expectantly. 

“Get the stables. A couple of the best horses. . . .” 

“I’ve already got them,” said Graham. ... It was 
for such reasons that Graham, though a youngster, 
could hold so difficult position as private secretary to 
Bruce Standing, Timber-Wolf. 

A1 Blake was Standing’s mining expert, general super¬ 
intendent of all his mining interests and the one source 
to which he applied for advice on all mining matters. 
He was the highest salaried man on the extensive pay¬ 
roll and the shrewdest. In a few minutes Graham 
announced that he had the Red Creek Mine on the wire 
and that Blake was coming. 

“I want you here on the jump, Al,” said Standing. 
“And I need forty of our best men; scare up as many as 
you can at your diggings; I can fill the number down 
here. Just good men, understand? Men you know; 
men who at a pinch will fight like hell; every man with a 
rifle.” 

“Sounds like St. Ives 1” grunted Blake, wide awake by 
now. “All right. I’m on my way in ten minutes.” 

Standing began pacing up and down again, his eyes 
frowning. He needed Billy Winch right now; needed 
him the worst way. For here was work to be done of 
the sort which invariably he placed in Winch’s capable 
hands. But Winch had had a night of it and Standing 


TIMBER-WOLF 


298 

was not tlie man to overlook that fact as long as he could 
put his hand on another man who would do. . . . 

^‘Have Dick Ross up, on the run,’’ he told Graham. 

Breakfast came, served on big massive trays by the 
Japanese servant. Almost at the same moment, and 
literally on the run, Dick Ross came in. 

Scare up ten good men for me, Ross. With rifles, 
all ready to ride. I’ll have breakfast ready for them 
here.” Graham caught the alert eye of the Japanese who 
set down his trays hurriedly and with a quick nod 
raced off to the kitchen. Standing looked sternly at 
Ross and said curtly: ‘‘I’m handing you a job that 
would usually go to Winch, Ross, but he’s asleep. . . 

“He was just getting up again, Mr. Standing. Said 
he wanted to see for himself how Thor was pulling 
along. ...” 

“Then,” said Standing, “hop back and tell Winch what 
I said. He can tell you the men to pick ... or, if 
he’s busy working with Thor he can leave it to you. 
Of course I want you to be of the number; Peters also if 
Winch doesn’t need him; Winch, too, if he says the 
word. . . .” 

Standing and Graham ate standing up. Men sum¬ 
moned began coming in. Each of them was given brief 
clean-cut orders and allowed brief time to gulp a hot 
breakfast. Billy Winch came first, bringing with him 
Mexicali Joe. 

“He’s going to be all right, I think ,said Winch by way 
of greeting, and Standing understood that he was re¬ 
porting on Thor. “I never saw man or animal worse 
shot-all-to-hell, either. I got him in bed now, strapped 
down; he’s conscious this morning and had a fair night, 
all things considered. There’s nothing more to be done 
right away, just be kept quiet. . . .” 

“ I was coming out in a minute. . . .” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


299 


canT have folks running in on him, Timber,’’ said 
Winch, with a slow shake of the head, mumbling over a 
mouthful of ham and egg. '‘But if you’d just run in 
on him one second, to sort of let him know you was with 
him, you know, and then beat it, it might do him good.” 

" Can you leave for two or three hours ? To go down 
with A1 Blake and some of the boys to stake a string of 
mining claims down in Light Ladies’ Gulch ?” 

"That’s why the rifles?” said Winch. "Sure, I can 
go, leaving Charley Peters with full instructions. But 
I’ll have to be back in, say, four hours at latest.” 

Standing turned to Mexicali Joe. 

"Joe,” he said, "how many friends have you got that 
we can put on the pay-roll for a few days at twenty- 
five dollars a day ? To stake claims down in the Gulch ? ” 
Jesus Maria gasped Joe. "Twenty-five dollars a 
day ? For each man ? There would be one meelion 
men, Senor Caballero. ...” 

"Take him in tow, Graham! Get a list of names from 
him, men to be reached in an hour’s ride. As many as 
you can get, twenty or thirty or forty. And get them 
here . . . quick.” 

A1 Blake arrived from the Red Creek Mine. String¬ 
ing along after him came a dozen men of his choosing; 
big, uncouth, unshaved, rough-looking customers to the 
last man of them and yet ... as Standing and Blake 
agreed all good men! Good to carry out orders; 
to put up a fight against odds; to hang on and fight to 
the last ditch. Graham saw to it that every man Jack 
of them was fed and had his cigar from the Chief’s 
private stock. The men grouped outside and looked 
at one another, but for the greater part wasted little 
breath in speculations and questionings, each realizing 
that his fellows knew as little as himself. 

It was a busy morning for Bruce Standing. Yet three 


300 


TIMBER-WOLF 


times he found the time . . . rather he made it . . . 
to go out to the ‘‘hospital’’ to stand over old Thor and 
speak softly to him. Thor lay upon a white-enamelled 
bed; his bed was softened for him by many downy 
pillows; at the bedside sat Charley Peters, his face as 
grave, his eye as watchful, as could have been had it 
been Timber-Wolf himself who lay there. And when 
Standing came in Thor heard his step and tried to move; 
tried to lift his poor battered head. But at the master’s 
low voice, “Down, Thor! Down, sir . . . good old 
dog!” Thor lay back and his tired sigh was like the 
sigh of a man. Standing’s big hand rested gently upon 
the old fellow . . . then Standing went out, walking 
softly and Thor lay still a very long while, waiting for 
him to come again. . . . 

A1 Blake left within fifteen minutes of his arrival, a 
little army of armed men at his back. With him, on 
the fastest horse in Standing’s stables, rode a man whose 
sole responsibility was to race back witdi word of condi¬ 
tions. Fully Standing counted on hearing that already 
at least two claims had been staked. But he was not 
ready to see Lynette again so soon; he was not ready yet 
to see Babe Deveril. Never for a single instant since 
seeing that bit of paper hung to a tree with a girl’s 
mockery upon it, had he doubted that this girl, whom he 
had thought that he loved, had cast in with the Baby 
Devil, the two racing side by side to steal Mexicali Joe’s 
gold. He had said to A1 Blake: 

“Put them off . . . but don’t hurt either of them. 
Leave them to me.” 

Attorney Ben Brewster, a man much shaken, arrived 
in record time. He could scarcely speak a word until 
Graham poured out for him a generous glass of whiskey. 
Then he glared at Standing as though he would highly 
enjoy killing him. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


301 


''You’ve got a fee to pay this trip,” he groaned, "that 
will make you sit up and stretch your eyes! Good God, 
man . . 

"Give him another drink, Graham,” said Standing. 
"He’s a lawyer and there’s no danger of such getting 
drimk! . . . Curse your fees, Brewster. What do I 
care so you make an iron-clad job of it.” 

"And the job ?” 

Graham saw that he had a cigar. 

"Something crooked!” muttered Brewster. "I’ll 
bet a hat 1” 

"Otherwise,” jeered Standing, "why send for you 1 . . . 
Now shut up, Ben, and get that infected brain of yours 
working. Here’s the tale.” 

Ben Brewster, a man who knew his business . . . and 
his client . . . went into action. That day he took in 
businesslike shape all possible steps toward forming a 
new corporation. The Mexicali Joe Gold Mining Com¬ 
pany. 

"Lord, what a fool name!” he growled. 

"Never mind the name,” retorted Standing. 

During the day many other men came in; among them 
no less than seventeen swarthy men of Mexicali Joe’s 
breed. Brewster took signatures, and the men, showing 
their glistening white teeth, knew nothing of what was 
happening save that each man of them was to draw 
twenty-five dollars a day for driving a stake and sitting 
snug over it, rifle in hand and cigarette in mouth! 
Brewster got other signatures going down to Light 
Ladies’ Gulch and among the men there. In all, he 
signed names of about sixty men. The Mexicali Joe Gold 
Mining Company was born. And the greater part of 
the stock, and the magnificently shining title of presi¬ 
dent was invested in . . . Mexicali Joe! Suddenly, 
though all day he had been a man as dark-browed as 


302 


TIMBER-WOLF 


a thunder-storm, Standing burst out into that golden 
laughter of his. Not a single share in his name; all 
immediate expenses to be paid by him, and they were 
to be heavy; and yet he counted himself the man to draw 
a full ninety-nine per cent of the dividends of sheer tri¬ 
umph ! For it was to be a cold shut-out to Taggart and 
Gallup and Shipton and all Big Pine! And, most of 
all, for Babe Deveril and that girl! For early had come 
back the report from A1 Blake: Neither of them here; 
no claims staked!” 

Standing could only estimate that the girl had mis¬ 
understood; that, hearing Joe’s description of the place, 
she had not grasped the true sense of his words. He 
lingered over the picture of her and Deveril, hastening, 
driving their stakes somewhere else! 

When Mexicali Joe came to understand, after much 
eloquence from Graham, how matters stood . . . how 
he swaggered! This, a day in a lifetime, was Mexicali 
Joe’s day. 

Tm President 

President of a gold-mining company! Mexicali Joe 1 
And of a real mine; for A1 Blake had sent back the curt 
word: “He’s got it; he’s got a mine that I’d advise you to 
buy in for a hundred thousand while you can. It may 
run to anything. The best thing I’ve seen up here any¬ 
where !” 

Mexicali Joe on the high-road to become a million¬ 
aire . . . through the efforts of Bruce Standing. 

To be sure, Joe, a man very profoundly bewildered, 
more dumfounded even than elated, took never a single 
step and said never a single word without going first 
to his friend “Senor Caballero.” Before the end of that 
glorious day Joe was dead-drunk; didn’t know “whether 
he was afoot or horseback.” But in his crafty Latin 
way, he kept his mouth shut. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


303 


And then Bruce Standing, with an eye not to further 
wealth, but toward the confounding of all hopes of such 
as Young Gallup and Jim Taggart and Babe Deveril . . . 
and a certain girl . . . sprang his coup. With Ben 
Brewster guarding his rear in every advance, he ‘^swal¬ 
lowed whole,’’ as Brewster put it, every bit of available 
land above and below and on every side of Joe’s claims. 
He recked neither of present difficulties and expenses nor 
of lawsuits to come. He wanted the land . . . and he 
got it! And he issued his proclamation: 

“There’s a town there, on Light Ladies’ Gulch. You 
don’t see it? It’s there! . . . Graham, get busy! A 
contractor; lumber; building materials; carpenters! 
We build a town as big as Big Pine and we build it 
faster than ever a town grew before! A store, black¬ 
smith shop, hotel. Shacks of all sorts. Graham!” 

Graham, like a man with an electric current shot 
through him, jumped out of his chair. 

“ Send a man on the run to Big Pine with a message 
for Young Gallup! And the message is this: ^Bruce 
Standing promised to pull your damned town down about 
your ears . . . and the pulling has begun 1^” 

“Yes, Mr. Standing,” said Graham. And sent a man 
on a running horse. 

And then took swift dictation. Standing made a bud¬ 
get of fifty thousand dollars, as a “starter.” Even 
Graham wondered what impulses were rioting in his 
mad heart! 

“We want scrapers and ploughs, a crew of road-makers! 
We build a new road on this side of Light Ladies^ 
Gulch! Got the idea, Graham ? We cut Big Pine out. 
We go by them, giving a shorter road to the outside, a 
better road. We boycott Gallup’s dinky town! Keep 
in mind we’ll double that first fifty thousand any time 
we need to. Get this word around: ‘ Any man who buys 


304 


TIMBER-WOLF 


a nickel’s worth of tobacco in Big Pine can’t buy any¬ 
thing, even if he has his pockets full of clinking gold, in 
our town! No man, once seen setting his foot down in 
Gallup’s town, is going to be tolerated two minutes in 
our town.’ Get the idea, Graham?” 

“Yes, Mr. Standing!” 

Standing smote him then so mightily upon the shoulder 
that Graham, a small man, went pale, shot through with 
pain. 

“Raise your own salary, Graham. 


And earn it nowV"* 


CHAPTER XXV 


What Bruce Standing could not know was that those 
few words signed Lynette and saying with such cruel 
curtness: have gone back to Babe Deveril,” had 

been written not by Lynette, but by Deveril himself. 
Nor could he know that Lynette had not gone freely 
but under the harsh coercion of four men. 

Deveril, when Lynette refused to go with him, had 
hurried away through the woods, his heart burning with 
jealous rage. Was the hated Timber-Wolf to win again, 
not only in the game for gold but in another game which 
was coming to be the one greatest consideration in 
Babe DeveriFs life ? 

‘‘Not while I live!” he muttered to himself over and 
over. And once out of sight of Lynette who still sat 
bowed over the dog he had struck down, he broke into 
a run. Jim Taggart and Gallup and Cliff Ship ton were 
not so far away that he could not hope to reach them and 
to bring them back before Standing returned. 

Thus, not over fifteen minutes before Bruce Standing 
came back, bringing Billy Winch and Mexicali Joe with 
him, Deveril had appeared before Lynette a second 
time. And now she leaped to her feet, seeing who his 
companions were and reading at one quick glance what 
lay unhidden in their faces. Greed was there and savage 
gloating and mercilessness; she knew that at least three 
of those men would stamp her into the ground imder 
their heavy boots if thus they might walk over her 
body through the golden gates of Mexicali Joe’s secret. 

“You’re arrested!” cried Taggart. “Come, get a 
move on. We clear out of this on the run 1” 

305 


TIMBER-WOLF 


306 

‘^It was you who shot him, not I! And I’ll not go 
with you. In a minute he’ll be back. . . .” 

Taggart was of no mind for delay and talk; he caught 
her roughly by the arm. Her eyes went swiftly to 
Deveril’s; of his look she could make nothing. He 
shrugged and said only: 

Taggart’s sheriff; he’ll take you along, anyway. You 
might as well go without a fuss.” 

Gallup, his face ugly with the emotions swaying him, 
was at her other side. She looked to the hawk-faced 
man and then away with a shudder. Then, trying to 
jerk away, she screamed out: 

^‘Help! Bruce ...” 

Taggart’s big hairy hand was over her mouth. 

Come along,” he commanded angrily. Get a move 
on.” 

Half dragging her the first few steps they led her out 
of camp, down into the canon and across among the 
trees. She gave over struggling; they watched her so 
that she could not call again; Taggart threatened to 
stuff his dirty bandana handkerchief into her mouth. 
Deveril alone held back for a little; she did not know 
what he was doing; did not see him as he wrote in a hand 
which he strove to give a girlish semblance those few 
words to which he signed her name. She scarcely 
marked his delay; she was trying now to think fast and 
logically. 

These men were brutes, all of them; she had had ample 
evidence of that already and had that evidence been 
lacking the information was there emblazoned in their 
faces. Even Babe Deveril, in whom once she had 
trusted, began to show the brutal lining of his insolent 
character. And yet need she be afraid of any of them 
just now? If she openly thwarted them, yes. They 
would show no mercy to a girl. But at the moment 


TIMBER-WOLF 


307 

their thoughts were set not upon her undoing, but upon 
Mexicali Joe’s gold. And she knew where it was and 
they knew that she knew. . . . Taggart was speaking, 
growling into her ear: 

‘‘We followed Mexicali; we saw him come up here; 
Deveril followed him into camp. He told where his 
gold was. And you heard it all!” 

“Well said Lynette, striving with herself for calm¬ 
ness. She was thinking: “If only I can have a little 
time. He will come for me. ... If only I can have 
a little time.” 

“What do you mean by that?” demanded Taggart. 
“The whole earth ain’t Joe’s because he picked up a 
nugget or two. Anybody’s got a right to stake a claim; 
I got a right and so has the boys . . . and so have you.” 

“Suppose,” offered Lynette as coolly as she could, 
“that I refused to tell?” 

There came a look into Taggart’s hard eyes which 
answered her more eloquently than any words from the 
man could have done, which put certain knowledge and 
icy fear into her. 

Always, when nervous or frightened, Lynette’s laugh¬ 
ter came easily to her and now without awaiting any 
other answer from this man she began laughing in such 
a fashion as to perplex him and bring a dragging frown 
across his brows. 

“Are you going to tell us?” he asked. 

“If I do,” she temporized, “do I have the chance to 
drive the first stakes?” 

“ By God, yes! And say, little one, you’re a peach into 
the bargain.” 

She did not appear to hear; she was thinking over and 
over: “Bruce Standing will come after us as soon as 
he finds I am gone. I must gain a little time, that is 
all.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


30S 

If only she could make them think that the gold was 
somewhere near by so that Standing must readily find 
them. But now Deveril had rejoined them and she 
recalled how he had heard something, though not all, 
of Joe’s triumphant announcement. For Joe had 
shouted out at the top of his voice, to catch and hold 
Timber-Wolf’s attention: ‘‘Light Ladies’ Gulch! ” Dev¬ 
eril had heard that; and Light Ladies’ Gulch was many 
miles away, down toward Big Pine. . . . 

Deveril was looking at her with eyes which were 
bright and hard and told no tales of the man’s thoughts. 

“This lovely and altogether too charming young 
woman,” Deveril said lightly, his eyes still upon her, 
though his words were for the others, “has a mind of 
her own. It would be as well to hear what she has to 
say and learn what she intends to do.” 

“Will you try to lie to us demanded Taggart. “Or 
will you tell us the truth ?” 

She, too, strove for lightness, saying: 

“Think that out for yourself, Mr. Taggart. Bruce 
Standing knows where the gold is now; both you and I 
know the sort of man he is and we can imagine that if he 
drives the first stake he will see to it that he takes the 
whole thing. Do you really think that after I came into 
this country for gold myself I am going to miss my one 
chance now?” She puzzled them again with her 
laughter and said: “Not that it would not be a simple 
matter to trick you, were I minded to let my own chances 
go for the sake of spoiling yours; Mexicali Joe fooled 
you so easily.” 

“Yet you yelled for Standing just now. ...” 

“After you came rushing upon me as if you meant to 
tear me to pieces, frightening the wits out of me.” 

“Well, then, tell us.” 

“If I told you now, then what? You’d desert me in 


TIMBER-WOLF 


309 


a minute; you would race on ahead; when I caught up 
with you there would be nothing left.’’ 

Deveril’s eyes flashed and he said quickly: 

^‘And give you the chance to send us to the wrong 
place, were you so minded, so that you could slip off 
alone and be first at the other spot! Very clever. Miss 
Lynette, but that won’t work. You go with us.” 

And all the while she was trying so hard to think; and 
all the while listening so eagerly for a certain glorious, 
golden voice shouting after her. Deveril had heard part 
of Joe’s exclamation. . . . 

It is in Light Ladies’ Gulch,” she said quietly. 

‘^Yes!” Here was Young Gallup speaking, his cove¬ 
tous soul aflame. ‘‘We know that; Deveril heard. But 
Light Ladies’ Gulch is forty miles long. Where abouts 
in the gulch?” 

She told herself that she would die before she led them 
aright. And yet she realized to the full the danger to 
herself if she tricked them as Joe had done and they dis¬ 
covered her trickery before Standing came. Yet most 
of all was she confident that he would come and swiftly. 
. . . Joe’s words still rang in her memory; he had told 
first of the Red Cliffs, how he had found color there last 
year; how he had made prospect holes; how his real mine 
lay removed three or four miles. Still she temporized, 
saying: 

“Bruce Standing and Billy Winch and Joe have horses. 
We are on foot. Tell me how we can hope to come to 
the spot first ?” 

“We’ll have horses ourselves in a jiffy/’ said Taggart. 
“ Stepping lively, we’re not more than a couple of hours 
from a cattle outfit over the ridge. We’ll get all the 
horses we want and we’ll ride like hell!” 

“You know where the Red Cliffs are ? At the foot of 
the cliffs I’ll show you Joe’s prospect holes. . . .” 


i 


310 TIMBER-WOLF 

The pale-eyed, hawk-faced Cliff Shipton spoke for the 
first time. 

“Not half a dozen miles out of Big Pine! I told you 
last year, Gallup. . . 

Deveril, the keenest of them all, the one who knew her 
best, suspected her from the beginning. His eyes never 
once left her face. 

“How do we know,’’ he said quietly, “that there’s any 
gold there ? That Joe’s gold is not somewhere else ? ” 

“You will have to make your own decision,” she told 
him as coolly as she could. “If you think that I am 
mistaken or that I am trying to play with you as Joe did, 
you are free to go where you please.” 

Taggart began cursing; his grip tightened on her arm 
so that he hurt her terribly as he shouted at her: 

“I’ll give you one word of warning, little one! If you 
put up a game on us now, you cut your own throat. In 
the first place I’ll make it my business that if we get shut 
out, you get shut out along with us. And in the sec¬ 
ond place when I’m through with you no other man in 
the world will have any use for you. Got that ?” 

She knew what he had done to Mexicali Joe; she could 
guess what other unthinkable things he would have done. 
And she knew that if now she tricked Jim Taggart and 
he found her out . . . before Bruce Standing came . . . 
she could only pray to die. 

And yet at this, the supreme test in her life, she held 
steady to a swiftly taken purpose. She would not put 
the game into these men’s hands. And she held stead¬ 
fastly to her certainty, knowing the man, that Bruce 
Standing would come. Therefore, though her face went 
a little pale, and her mouth was so dry that she did not 
dare speak, she shrugged her shoulders. 

“Come, then,” said Taggart. “Enough palaver. 
We’re on our way.” 


TIMBER-WOLF 


311 

And of them all, only Babe Deveril was stiU dis¬ 
trustful. 

And thus Lynette, accepting her own grave risk with 
clear-eyed comprehension and yet with unswerving de¬ 
termination, led these four men to a spot where she knew 
that they would not find that gold for which every man of 
them had striven so doggedly; thus it was she who made 
it possible for Bruce Standing to be before all others 
and to triumph and strike the death-blow to Big Pine 
and to begin that relentless campaign which was to end 
in humbling his ancient enemy. Young Gallup. Yet 
there was little exultation in Lynette’s heart, but a grow¬ 
ing fear, when, after hours of furious haste, she and the 
four men came at last into Light Ladies’ Gulch and to 
the base of the towering red cliffs. 

Cliff Ship ton knew more of gold-mining than any of 
the others and Lynette watched him narrowly as he 
went up and down under the high cliffs. And she knew 
that she in turn was watched; in the first excitement of 
coming to the long-sought spot she had hoped that she 
might escape. But both Taggart and Deveril followed 
her at every step with their eyes. 

Desperately she clung to her assurance that Bruce 
Standing would come for her. He had said that he 
would come ^Hhough it were ten thousand mile.” He 
might have difficulties in finding her; she might have to 
wait a little while, an hour or two, or three hours. But 
it remained that he was a man to surmount obstacles 
insurmountable to other men; a man to pin faith upon. 
Yet time passed and he did not come. 

They found indications of Mexicali Joe’s labors, rock 
ledges at which he had chipped and hammered, prospect 
holes lower on the steep slope. And Cliff Shipton ac¬ 
knowledged that “the signs were all right.” But they 


312 


TIMBER-WOLF 


did not find the gold and they did not find anything to 
show that Joe or another had worked here recently. 

‘‘All this work/’ said Ship ton, staring and frowning, 
“was done a year ago.” 

“He’d be crafty enough,” muttered Gallup, “to hide 
his real signs. We got to look around every clump of 
brush and in every gully where maybe he’s covered things 
up. . . . You’re sure,” and he whipped about upon 
Lynette, “that you got straight all he said?” 

“I’m sure,” said Lynette. And she was afraid that 
the men would hear the beating of her heart. 

“I am going up to the top of the cliffs again and see 
what I can see,” she said. 

“If there’s gold anywhere it’s down here,” said Ship- 
ton. “There’s nothing on the top.” 

“Just the same I’m going!” 

“Where the horses are ?” jeered Taggart. “By God, 
if you have . . .” 

“ If you think I am trying to run away you can fol¬ 
low and watch me. I am going.” 

She turned. Deveril was watching her with keen, 
shrewd eyes. Taggart took a quick stride toward her, 
his hand lifted to drag her back. Deveril stepped be¬ 
fore him, saying coolly: 

“I’ll go up with her, Taggart. And I guess you know 
how I stand on this, don’t you ?” 

“All right,” conceded the sheriff. “Only keep your 
eye peeled. I’m getting leery.” 

It was a long climb to the cliff tops and neither L 3 mette 
nor Deveril at her heels spoke during the climb. They 
were silent when at last they stood side by side near 
the tethered horses. Deveril’s eyes were upon her pale 
face; her own eyes ran swiftly, eagerly across the deep 
canon to the wooded lands beyond. She prayed with 
the fervor of growing despair for the sight of a certain 


TIMBER-WOLF 313 

young blond giant of a man racing headlong to her 
relief. 

“Well?^’ said Deveril presently in a tone so strange, 
so vibrant with suppressed emotion that he made her 
start and drew her wondering eyes swiftly. ^‘What are 
you looking for now ? ’’ 

“Why do you talk like that . . . what is the matter ? ” 

His bitter laughter set her nerves quivering. 

“ Is the gold here, Lynette ? Or is it some miles away, 
with Bruce Standing already sinking his claws into it. 
Standing style 

Again her eyes left him, returning across the gorge to 
the farther wooded lands. Over there was a road, the 
road into which she and Babe Deveril had turned briefly 
that night, a thousand years ago, when they had fled 
from Big Pine in the dark; a road whicii led to Bruce 
Standing’s headquarters. From the top of the cliffs she 
caught a glimpse of the road, winding among the trees; 
her eyes were fixedly upon it; her lips were moving softly, 
though the words were not for Babe Deveril’s ears. 

“Lynette,” he said in that strangely tense and quiet 
voice, “if you have been fool enough to try to put some¬ 
thing over on this crowd. . . . Can’t you guess how 
you’d fare in Jim Taggart’s hands?” 

She was not looking at him; she did not appear to 
mark his words. He saw a sudden change in her ex¬ 
pression; she started and the blood rushed back into her 
cheeks and her eyes brightened. He looked where she 
was looking. Far across the canon, rising up among 
the trees, was a cloud of dust. Some one was riding 
there, riding furiously. . . . 

Together they watched, waiting for that some one to 
appear in the one spot where the winding road could be 
glimpsed through the trees. And in a moment they 
saw not one man only, but a dozen or a score of men, 


314 


TIMBER-WOLF 


men stooping in their saddles and riding hard, veiled 
in the rising dust puffing up under their horses’ flying 
feet. Now and then came a pale glint of the sun strik¬ 
ing upon the rifles which, to the last man, they carried. 
They came into view with a rush, were gone with a rush. 
The great cloud of dust rose and thinned and disappeared. 

“That road will bring them down into Light Ladies’ 
Gulch where it makes the wide loop about three miles 
from here,” said Deveril. “Have you an idea who they 
are, Lynette ?” 

“No,” she said, her lips dry; “I don’t understand.” 

“I think that I do understand,” he told her, with a 
flash of anger. “Those are Standing’s men and they 
are riding, armed, like the mill-tails of hell. Listen to 
me while you’ve got the chance! That’s not the first 
bunch of men who have ridden over there like that to¬ 
day. Two hours ago, when you went down the cliffs 
with the others and I stopped up here, I saw the same 
sort of thing happening. If you’re so innocent,” he 
sneered at her, “I’ll read you the riddle. I’ve told you 
those are Standing’s men; then why the devil are iJiey 
riding like that and in such numbers ? They’re going 
straight down into the Gulch where the gold is while 
you hold us back, up here. And Standing is paying off 
an old grudge and jamming more gold into his bulging 
pockets. . . . And you’ve got some men to reckon with 
in ten minutes who’ll make you sorry that you were 
ever born a girl!” 

“No!” she cried hoarsely. “No. I won’t believe 
it ” 

He failed to catch just what she was thinking. She 
refused to believe that Bruce Standing, instead of coming 
to her had raced instead to Mexicali Joe’s gold; that 
instead of scattering his men across fifty miles of coun- 


TIMBER-WOLF 


315 

try seeking her, he was massing them at a new gold¬ 
mine. Bruce Standing was not like that! She cried it 
passionately within her spirit. She had stood loyally 
by him; she had, at all costs, kept her word to him . . . 
she had come to believe in his love for her and to long 
for his return. . . . 

^‘If you saw men before ... if you thought the thing 
that you think now . . . why didn’t you rush on after 
them ? It’s not true!” 

^‘I didn’t rush after them,” he returned curtly, ‘^be¬ 
cause I’d be a fool for my pains and would only give that 
wolf-devil another chance to laugh in my face. For if 
he’s got this lead on us . . . why, then, the game is his.” 

“But I won’t believe . . .” 

“If you will watch you will see. I’ll bet a thousand 
dollars he has a hundred men down there already and 
that they’ll be riding by all day; they’ll be staking claims 
which he will buy back from them at the price of a day’s 
work; he’ll work a clean shut-out for Gallup and Taggart. 
That’s what he’d give his right hand to do. You watch 
a minute.” 

They watched. Once Taggart shouted up to them. 

“Down in a minute, Taggart.” Deveril called back. 

Before long Lynette saw another cloud of dust; this 
time three or four men rode into sight and sped away 
after the others; before the dust had cleared another two 
or three men rode by. And at last Lynette felt despair 
in her heart, rising into her throat, choking her. For 
she understood that in her hour of direst need Bruce 
Standing had failed her. 

“Taggart will be wanting you in a minute,” said 
Deveril. He spoke casually; he appeared calm and un¬ 
troubled; he took out tobacco and papers and began 
rolling a cigarette. But Lynette saw that the man was 
atremble with rage. “Before you go down to him, tell 


TIMBER-WOLF 


316 

me: did you know what you were doing when you 
brought us to the wrong place ?” 

It was scarcely above a whisper, yet she 
strove with all her might to make it defiant. She was 
afraid and yet she fought with herself, seeking to hide 
her fear from him. 

He shrugged elaborately, as though the matter were 
of no great interest and no longer concerned him. 

“Then your blood be on your own head,’^ he said 
carelessly. “I, for one, will not raise my hand against 
you; what Taggart does to you concerns only you and 
Taggart.” 

“Babe Deveril!” 

She called to him with a new voice; she was afraid 
and no longer strove to hide her fear. Until now she 
had carried on, head high, in full confidence; confidence 
in a man. And that man, like Babe Deveril before him, 
had thought first of gold instead of her. Bruce Standing 
had spoken of love and had turned aside for gold; with 
both hands full of the yellow stuff he thought only of 
more to be had, and not of her. 

“Babe Deveril! Listen to me! I have been a fool 
. . . oh, such a fool! I knew so little of the real world 
and of men, and I thought that I knew it all. My mother 
had me raised in a convent, thinking thus to protect me 
against all the hardships she had endured; but she did 
not take into consideration that her blood and Dick 
Brooke’s blood was my blood! This was all a glorious 
adventure to me; I thought ... I thought I could do 
anything; I was not afraid of men, not of you nor of 
Bruce Standing nor of any man. Now I am afraid . . . 
of Jim Taggart! You helped me to run from him once; 
help me again. Now. Let me have one of the horses 
. . . let me go. . . .” 

All the while he stood looking at her curiously. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


317 

Toward the end there was a look in his eyes which hinted 
at a sudden spiritual conflagration within. 

“You’re not used to this sort of thing?” And when 
she shook her head vehemently, he added sternly: 
“And you are not Bruce Standing’s ? And have never 
been?” 

“No, no I” she cried wildly, drawing back from him. 
“You. don’t think that. . . .” 

Now he came to her and caught her two hands 
fiercely. 

“Lynette!” he said eagerly. “Lynette, I love you! 
To-day you have stood between me and a fortune, and 
I tell you ... I love you 1 Since first you came to the 
door of my cabin I have loved you, you girl with the dar¬ 
ing eyes I” 

“Don’t!” she pleaded. “Let me go. Can’t you 
see. . . .” 

“Tell me, Lynette,” he said sternly, still holding her 
hands tight in his, “is there any chance for me ? I had 
never thought to marry; but now I’d rather have you 
mine than have all the gold that ever came out of the 
earth. Tell me and tell me the truth; we know each other 
rather well for so few days, Lynette. So tell me; tell me, 
Lynette.” 

Again she shook her head. 

“Let me go,” she pleaded. “Let me have a horse 
and go. Before they come up for me. . . .” 

“Then there’s no chance, ever, for me?” 

“Neither for you nor for any other man. ... I have 
had enough of all men. . . . Let me go. Babe Deverill” 

Still he held her, his hands hardening her, as he de¬ 
manded : 

“And what of Bruce Standing ?” 

“I don’t know ... I can’t understand men ... I 
thought there never was another man like him, a hard 


3i8 timber-wolf 

man who could be tender, a man who ... I donT know; 
I want to go.’^ 

‘‘Go?’’ There came a sudden gleam into his eyes. 
“And where ? Back to Bruce Standing maybe ?” 

“No! Anywhere on earth but back to him. To the 
stage which will be leaving Big Pine in a little while; 
back to a land where trains run, trains which can take 
me a thousand miles away. Oh, Babe Deveril. . . .” 

Taggart’s voice rose up to them, sounding savage. 

“ What in hell’s name are you doing up there ? ” 

Then Deveril released her hands. 

“Go to the horses,” he commanded. “Untie all 
four. I’ll ride with you to the stage . . . and we’ll take 
the other horses along!” 

She had scarcely hoped for this; for an instant she 
stood staring at him, half afraid that he was jeering at 
her. Then she ran to the horses and began wildly un¬ 
tying their ropes. Deveril, smoking his cigarette, ap¬ 
peared on the edge of the cliff for Taggart to see, and 
called down carelessly: 

“What’s all the excitement, Taggart?” 

“Keep your eye on that girl. Ship ton thinks she’s 
fooled us. I want her down here.” 

Deveril laughed at him and turned away. Once out 
of Taggart’s sight he ran. Lynette already was in the 
saddle; he mounted and took from her the tie ropes of 
the other horses. 

“On our way,” he said crisply. “They’ll be after us 
like bees out of a jostled hive.” 

They did not ride into Big Pine, but into the road 
two or three miles below where the stage would pass. 
Deveril hailed the stage when it came and the driver 
took Lynette on as his solitary passenger. At the last 
minute she caught Babe Deveril’s hand in both of hers. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


319 


‘‘There is good and bad in you, Babe Deveril, as I 
suppose there is in all of us. But you have been good to 
me! I will never forget how you have stood my friend 
twice; I will always remember that you were a man; 
a man who never did little, mean things. And I shall 
always thank God for that memory. And now, good- 
by, Babe Deveril and good luck go with you!” 

“And Standing?” he demanded at the end. “You 
are done with him, too ?” 

Suddenly she looked wearier than he had ever seen 
her even during their days and nights together in the 
mountains. She looked a poor little broken-hearted 
girl; there was a quick gathering of tears in her eyes, 
which she strove to smile away. But despite the smile, 
the tears ran down. She waved her hand; the stage 
driver cracked his long whip. . . . Deveril stood in the 
dusty road, his hat in his hand, staring down a winding 
roadway. A clatter of hoofs, a rattle of wheels, a mist 
of dust . . . and Lynette was gone. 


CHAPTER XXVI 


Deveril went back to his horse, mounting listlessly 
like a very tired man. Hie spring had gone out of his 
step and something of the elasticity out of that ever- 
young spirit which had always been his no matter 
from what quarter blew the variable winds of chance. 
Lynette was gone and he could not hold back his thoughts 
from winging back along the trail he and she had trod 
together; there had been the time, and now he knew it, 
when all things were possible; the time before Bruce 
Standing came into her life, when Babe Deveril, had he 
then understood both himself and her, might have won 
a thing more golden than any man’s mere gold. In his 
blindness he had judged her the light adventuress which 
she seemed; now that it was given him to understand 
that in Lynette Brooke he had found a pure-hearted girl 
whose inherited adventuresome blood had led her into 
tangled paths, he understood that in her there had come 
that one girl who comes once to all men . . . and that 
she had passed on and out of his life. 

He caught up the reins of the horse she had left be¬ 
hind. His face grew grim; he still had Jim Taggart to 
deal with and, therefore, it was as well to take this horse 
and the others back to Big Pine and leave them there 
for Taggart. For the first thing which would suggest 
itself to the enraged sheriff would be to press a charge 
against him of horse stealing, and in this country horse 
thieves were treated with no gentle consideration. 

^‘I’ll leave the horses there . . . and go.” 

Where ? It did not matter. There was nothing left 
for him in these mountains; Bruce Standing had the 
gold and the girl was on the stage. 

320 


TIMBER-WOLF 


321 

But in his bleak broodings there remained one gleam 
of gloating satisfaction: he had tricked Standing out 
of the girl! That L3mette already loved his kinsman 
or at the least stood upon the very brink of giving her 
heart tmreservedly into his keeping, DeveriFs keen eyes, 
the eyes of jealous love, had been quick to read. It 
did not once suggest itself to him that Standing could 
by any possibility have failed to love Lynette. The two 
had been for days together, alone in the mountains; why 
should Standing have kept her and have been gentle with 
her, as he must have been, save for the one reason that 
he loved her ? Further, what man could have lived so 
long with Lynette of the daring eyes and not love her ? 
And he, Babe Deveril, had stolen her away from Bruce 
Standing, had tricked him with a pencil scrawl, had lost 
Lynette to him for all time. The stage carrying her 
away now was as inevitable an instrument in the hand 
of fate as death itself. 

He turned back for the other horses which he had 
tethered by the roadside and led them on toward Big 
Pine. 

‘‘What the devil is love, anyway he muttered once. 

It was not for a man such as Babe Deveril to know 
clearly; for love is winged with unselfishness and self- 
sacrifice. And yet, after his own fashion, he loved her 
and would love her always, though other pretty faces 
came and went and he laughed into other eyes. She 
was lost to him; there was the one great certainty like a 
rock wall across his path. And she had said at the 
parting . . . her last words to him were to ring in his 
memory for many a long day . . . that there was both 
good and bad in him; and she chose to remember the 
good! He tried to laugh at that; what did he care 
for good and bad ? He, a man who went his way and 
made reckoning to none ? 


322 


TIMBER-WOLF 


And she had said that she knew him for a man; one 
who, whatever else he might have done, had never 
stooped to a mean, contemptible act; she thought of 
him and would always think of him as a man who, 
though he struck unrighteous blows, dealt them in 
the open, man-style. . . . And yet. . . the one deed of 
a significance so profound that it had directed the cur¬ 
rents of three lives, that writing of seven words, that 
signing of her name under them. . .. 

“I am glad that I did that!” he triumphed. And 
gladdest of all, in his heart, was he that Lynette did 
not know . . . would never know. 

Thus Babe Deveril, riding with drooping head, found 
certain living fires among the ashes of dead hopes: A 
row to come with Taggart ^ He could look forward to it 
with fierce eagerness. Standing and Lynette separated; 
vindictive satisfaction there. He’d got his knife in 
Standing’s heart at last! He’d like to wait a year or a 
dozen until some time Lynette forgot and another man 
came despite her sweeping avowal and she married; he 
would like then to come back to Bruce Standing and tell 
him the fool he had been and how it had been none 
other than Baby Devil who had knifed him. 

. . . And yet, all the while, Lynette’s farewell words 
were in his mind. And he saw before him, wherever he 
looked, her face as he had seen it last, her eyes blurred 
with her tears. And he fought stubbornly with himself 
against the insistent admission: It was Babe Deveril 
and none other who, saying that he loved her, had 
put those tears there. Good and bad ? What the devil 
had he to do with sticking those labelling tags upon 
what he or others did ? 

Bruce Standing was still in his office. He was a man 
who had won another victory and yet one who had the 


TIMBER-WOLF 


323 


taste of despair in his mouth. Gallup’s town was 
doomed; it was one of those little mountain towns which 
had already outlived its period of usefulness and now 
with a man like Timber-Wolf waging merciless war 
against it, Big Pine had its back broken almost at 
the first savage blow struck. But Standing strode up 
and down restlessly like a man broken by defeat rather 
than one whose standards went flying on triumph¬ 
antly; he knew that a new rival town, his own town, 
was springing into being in a few hours; he had the 
brief satisfaction of knowing that he was keeping an 
ancient promise and striking a body blow from which 
there would be no recovery, making Big Pine take the 
count and drop out of all men’s consideration; he knew, 
from having seen it many times, that pitiful spectacle 
which a dead and deserted town presents; so, briefly, 
just as his kinsman was doing at the same moment, he 
extracted what satisfaction he could from the hour. He 
even had word sent to Gallup: “1 am killing your town 
very much as a man may kill an ugly snake. I shall see 
to it that goods are sold cheaper here than at your store; 
there will be a better hotel here, with a better shorter 
road leading to it. And I will build cabins as fast as 
they are called for, to house deserters from your dying 
town. And I will see to it that men from my town never 
set foot in your town. This from me. Young Gallup: 
‘For the last time I have set foot upon your dung heap. 
I’m through with you and the world is through with 
you. You’re dead and buried.’” 

During the day, word came to him that several men 
and one girl had been seen hastily occupied at the 
foot of the Red Cliffs; the girl Lynette; one of the men, 
Deveril. And it seemed very clear to Standing that 
Lynette had led Deveril and the others in hot haste 
to the Red Cliffs only because she had misunderstood 


324 


TIMBER-WOLF 


Mexicali Joe’s directions, confused by his mention of 
these cliffs where he had prospected last year. 

“I’ll go get them.” Standing told himself a score of 
times. “Just as soon as I know how to handle them. 
When I know how I can hurt him most and her. ...” 

Mexicali Joe swelled about the landscape all day 
like a bursting balloon, a man swept up in a moment 
from a condition of less than mediocrity to one, as Mexi¬ 
cali regarded it, of monumental magnificence and the 
highest degree of earthly joy. Graham could not keep 
him out of Standing’s office; the second time he came 
in Timber-Wolf lifted him upon his boot hurling him 
out through the door and promising him seven kinds of 
ugly death if he ever came back. Whereupon Mexicali 
Joe, shaking his head, went away without grumbling; 
for in the sky of his adoration stood just two: God and 
Bruce Standing. 

Graham was still laughing, when another man rode up 
to the door, and Graham on the instant became alert and 
concerned. He hastened to Standing, saying quickly: 

“Mr. Deveril to see you. He has ridden his horse 
nearly to death. And I don’t like the look on his face.” 

“Show him in!” shouted Standing. “You fool . . . 
don’t you know he’s the one man in the world. . . .” 

Graham hurried out. Deveril, his face pale and hard, 
his eyes burning as though the man were fever-ridden, 
came into the room. The door closed after him. 

“Well?” snapped Standing. 

“Not so well, thanks,” retorted Deveril with an at¬ 
tempt at his characteristic inconsequential insolence. 
“Here’s hoping the same to you . . . damn you 1 ” 

“If you’ve got anything to say, get it done with,” 
commanded Standing angrily. 

“I’ll say it,” Deveril muttered. “But first I’ll say 
this, though I fancy it goes without saying: there is no 
man on earth I hate as I hate you. As far as you and I 


TIMBER-WOLF 


325 


-are concerned I’d rather see you dead than any other 
sight I’ll ever see. And now, in spite of all that, I’ve 
come to do you a good turn.” 

Standing scoffed at him, crying out: ‘^1 want none of 
your good turns; I am satisfied to have your hate.” 

Deveril, with eyes which puzzled Timber-Wolf, was 
staring at him curiously. 

“Tell me, Bruce Standing,” he demanded, “do you 
love her ?” 

“Love her?” cried Standing. “Ratlier I hate the 
ground she walks on! She is your kind. Baby Devil; 
not mine.” And he laughed his scorn of her. But now 
there was no chiming of golden bells in that great vol¬ 
ume of laughter but rather a sinister ring like the angry 
clash of iron. All the while Babe Deveril looked him 
straight in the eye . . . and understood 1 

“For once you lie! You love her and what is more 
. . . and worse! . . . she loves you! And that is 
why . . .” 

Loves me? Are you drunk, man, or crazy? Loves 
me and leaves me for you; leads you and your crowd to 
the Gulch, trying to stake on Joe’s claim, trying to . . 

“She did not leave you for me! I took Taggart and 
Gallup to her, and Taggart put her under arrest . . . 
for shooting you! And she did not lead us to the spot 
where she knew Joe’s claim was; she made fools of us 
and led us to the Red Cliffs, miles away!” 

Standing’s face was suddenly as tense as Deveril’s, 
almost as white. 

“She left a note; saying that she was going back to 

you. . . .” 

Deveril strode by him to a table on which lay some 
letter paper and wrote slowly and with great care, 
laboring over each letter: 


I am going back to Babe Deveril. 


Lynette. 


TIMBER-WOLF 


326 

And then he threw the pencil down and stood looking 
at Standing. And he saw an expression of bewilderment, 
and then one of amazement wiping it out, and then a 
great light leaping into Standing’s eyes. 

'^You made her go! You dragged her away! And 
you wrote that!” 

Deveril turned toward the door. 

“I have told you that she loves you. So it is for her 
happiness, much as I hate you, that I have told you. . . . 
She, thinking that you preferred gold to her, has just 
gone out on the down stage. ...” 

^^By the Lord, man,” and now Standing’s voice rang 
out joyously, clear and golden once more, ‘‘you’ve done 
a wonderful thing to-day! I wonder if I could have 
done what you are doing ? By thunder, Babe Deveril, 
you should be killed for the thing you did . . . but 
you’ve wiped it out. After this . . . need there be 
hatred between us?” 

He put out his hand. Deveril drew back and went 
out through the door. His horse, wet with sweat and 
flecked witli foam, was waiting for him. As he set foot 
into the stirrup he called back in a voice which rang 
queerly in Standing’s ears: 

“She doesn’t know I wrote that. Unless it’s neces¬ 
sary ... You see, I’d like her to think as well. . . .” 
He didn’t finish, but rode away. And as long as he was 
in sight he sat very erect in the saddle and sent back 
for any listening ears a light and lively whistled tune. 

The stage, carrying its one passenger came rocking 
and clattering about the last bend in the grade where 
the road crosses that other road which comes down from 
the mountains farther to the east, from the region of 
Bruce Standing’s holdings. The girl’s figure drooped 
listlessly; her eyes were dry and tired and blank with 


TIMBER-WOLF 


327 

utter hopelessness. Long ago the garrulous driver had 
pven over trying to talk with her. Now she was stoop¬ 
ing forward, so that she saw nothing in all the dreary 
world but the dusty dashboard before her . . . and in 
her fancy, moving across this like pictures on a screen, 
the images of faces . . . Bruce Standing’s face when 
he had chained her; when he had cried out that he 
loved her. . . . 

The driver slammed on his brakes, muttering; the 
wheels dragged; the stage came to an abrupt halt. 
She looked up, without interest. And there in the road, 
so close to the wheel that she could have put out a 
hand and touched him, was Bruce Standing. 

‘‘Lynette!” he called to her. 

She saw that he had a rifle in his hand; that a buck- 
board with a restive span of colts was at the side of the 
road. The driver was cursing; he understood that 
Standing, taking no chances, had meant to stop him in 
any case. 

‘^What’s this ?” he demanded. ‘^Hold up 

Standing ignored him. His arms were out; there was 
the gladdest look in his eyes Lynette had ever seen in 
any man’s; when he called to her he sent a thrill like 
a shiver through her. He had come for her; he wanted 
her. . . . 

‘‘No!” she cried, remembering. “No! Drive on!” 

“You bet your sweet life I’ll drive on!” the driver 
burst out. And to Standing: “Stand aside.” 

Then Standing put his hands out suddenly, dropping 
his rifle in the road, and caught Lynette to him, lifting 
her out of her seat despite her efforts to cling to the 
stage, and took up his rifle again, saying sternly to the 
stage-driver: 

“Now drive on!” 

“No!” screamed Lynette, struggling against the one 


TIMBER-WOLF 


328 

hand restraining her . • . and against herself! 
canT do this . . . donT let him. . . 

But in the end she knew how it would be. The stage- 
driver was no man to stand out against Bruce Standing 
. . . she wondered if anywhere on earth there lived a 
man to gainsay him when that light was in his eyes and 
that tone vibrated in his voice. 

“He’s got the drop on me . . . he’d drop me dead 
soon as not. . . . I’ll go, Miss; but I’ll send back 
word. ...” And Lynette and Bruce Standing, in the 
gathering dusk, were alone again in the quiet lands at 
the bases of the mountains. 

“Girl ... I did not know how I loved you until 
to-day!” 

She whipped away from him, her eyes scornful. 

“Love! You talk of love 1 And you leave me in the 
hands of those men while you go looking for gold!” 

“No,” he said, “it wasn’t that. I thought that you 
had no further use for me; that you loved Deveril; that 
you had gone back to him; that you were trying to lead 
him and the rest to Joe’s gold; that. . . .” 

There was now no sign of weariness in a pair of gray 
eyes which flashed in hot anger. 

“What right had you to think that of me ?” she chal¬ 
lenged him. “That I was a liar, breaking a promise I 
had made; and worse than a liar, to betray a confidence ? 
What right have you to think a thing like that, Bruce 
Standing . . . and talk to me of love!” 

He could have told her; he could have quoted to her 
that message which had been left behind, signed with 
her name. But, after all, in the end he had Babe Deveril 
to think of, a man who had shown himself a man, who 
had done his part for love of her, whose one reward if 
Bruce Standing himself were a man, must lie in the 
meagre consolation that Lynette held him above so 


TIMBER-WOLF 


329 

petty an act as that one which he had committed. So 
for a moment Standing was silent; and then he could 
only say earnestly: 

'‘I am sorry, Lynette. I wronged you and I was a 
fool and worse. But there were reasons why I thought 
that. . . . And after all we have misunderstood each 
other; that is all. Joe’s gold is still Joe’s gold; I have 
made it safe for him and not one cent of it is mine or 
will ever be mine. ...” 

‘‘Nor do I believe that!” she cried. “Nor any other 
thing you may ever tell me!” 

“That, at least, I can make you believe.” He was 
very stem-faced now and began wondering if Deveril 
had been mad when he had told him that Lynette loved 
him. How could Deveril know that? There was lit'^' 
tie enough of the light of love in her eyes now. And 
yet. . . . 

“Are you willing to come back to headquarters with 
me ?” he asked gently. “There, at least, you can learn 
that I have told you the tmth about Mexicali Joe’s gold. 
No matter how things go, girl, I don’t want you to think 
of me that I did a trick like that . . . forgetting you to 
go money-grabbing. . . .” 

“You can make me come,” she said bitterly. “You 
have put a chain on me before now. But you can never 
make me love you, Bruce Standing.” 

Now she saw in his face a look which stirred her to 
the depths; a look of profound sadness. 

“No,” he said, “I’ll never put chain on you again, 
girl; I’ll never lift my hand to make you do anything 
on earth; I would rather die than force you to anything. 
But I shall go on loving you always. And now,” and 
for the first time she heard him pleading! “is it so great 
a thing that I ask ? If you will not love me, at least I 
want you to think as well of me as you can. That is 


330 


TIMBER-WOLF 


only justice, girl; and you are very just. If you will 
only come with me and learn from Mexicali Joe himself 
that I have touched and shall touch no single ounce of 
his gold.^^ 

She knew that he was speaking truth; and yet she 
could not admit it to him . . . since she would not admit 
it to herself! And she wanted to believe, and yet told 
herself that she would never believe. She was glad 
that he was not dragging her back with him as she had 
been so certain that he would . . . and she did not know 
that she was not sorry. 

“Will you do that one thing ? I shall not try to hold 

you. . . 

“Yes,’’ she said stiffly. And then she laughed ner¬ 
vously, saying in a hard, suppressed voice: “What choice 
have I, after all ? The stage has gone and I have to go 
somewhere and find a stage again or a horse. . . .” 

“No. That is not necessary. If you will not come 
with me freely, I will take you now where you wish; to 
overtake the stage.” 

And thus, when already it was hard enough for her, 
he unwittingly made it harder. She wanted to go . . . 
she did not want to go . . . most of all she did not want 
him to know what she wanted or did not want. She 
cried out quickly: 

“Let us go then! I don’t believe you! And, if you 
dare let me talk alone with Mexicali Joe, I shall know you 
for what you are!” 

Lynette was in Bruce Standing’s study. He had gone 
for Mexicali Joe. She looked about her, seeing on all 
hands as she had seen during their racing drive, an ex¬ 
pression of the man himself. Here was a vital centre 
of enormous activities; Standing was its very heart. 
The biggest man she had ever known or dreamed of 


TIMBER-WOLF 


331 


knowing; one who did big things; one who was himself 
untrammelled by the dictates and conventions of others. 
And in her heart she did believe every word that he 
spoke; and thus she knew that he, this man among men, 
loved her! . . . And she loved him! She knew that; 
she had known it . . . how long ? Perhaps with clear 
definiteness for the first time while she spoke of him with 
Deveril, yearning for his coming; certainly when she 
had started at the sight of him at the stage wheel. So 
she held at last that it was for no selfish mercenary gain 
that he had been so long coming to her, but rather be¬ 
cause he had lost faith in her, thinking ill of her. That 
was what hurt; that was what held her back from his 
arms, since she would not admit that he could love her 
truly and misdoubt her at the same time. For certainly 
where one loved as she herself could love, one gave all, 
even unto the last dregs of loyal, confident faith. How 
confident all day she had been that he would come to 
her! 

Lynette, restless, walked up and down, back and forth 
through the big rooms, waiting. Her wandering eyes 
were everywhere . . . upon only one of the shining 
table tops was a scrap of paper. In her abstraction she 
glanced at it. Her own name! Written as though 
signed to a note. 

In a flash her quickened fancies pictured much of all 
that had happened: Deveril to-day had told Standing 
she was going out on the stage; Deveril had told Stand¬ 
ing all that had happened . . . because Deveril, too, 
loved her and knew that she loved his kinsman. She 
recalled now how Deveril had stopped a little while in 
camp after Taggart had dragged her away. So Deveril 
had left this note behind? And Standing knew now; 
he had said there were reasons why he had been so 
sure she had gone to Deveril. She understood how now 


332 


TIMBER-WOLF 


it would be with him; Deveril had told him everything 
and he, accepting a rich, free gift from the hand of a 
man he hated was not the man in turn to speak ill of one 
who had striven to make restitution, though by speaking 
the truth he might gain everything! These were men, 
these two; and to be loved by two such men was like 
having the tribute of kings. . . . She heard Standing at 
the door, bringing Mexicali Joe. There was a little fire 
in the fireplace; she ran to it and dropped the paper into 
the flames behind the big log. The door opened to 
Standing’s hand. At his heels she saw Mexicali Joe. 

^^No!” she cried, and he saw and marvelled at the 
new, shining look in her eyes; a look which made him 
stop, his heart leaping as he cried out wonderingly: 

‘^Girl! oh, girl ... at last?” 

“Don’t bring Joe in! I don’t want to talk with him; 
I want your word, just yours alone, on everything!” 

Now it was Mexicali Joe who was set wondering. 
For Standing, with a sudden vigorous sweep of his arm, 
slammed the door in Joe’s perplexed face and came 
I with swift eager strides to Lynette. 

‘ “It is I who have been of little faith and disloyal,” 
she said softly. “I was ungrateful enough to forget 
how you were big enough to take my unproven word 
that it was not I who shot you, a thing I could never 
prove 1 And yet I asked proof of you 1 I should have 
known all the time that . . . ^ though it were ten thou¬ 
sand mile. . . ” 

She was smiling now and yet her eyes were wet. She 
lifted them to his that he might look down into them, 
through them into her heart. 

“Let me say this . . . first . . .” she ran on hastily. 
“Babe Deveril saved me the second time to-day from 
Taggart. And he told you where to find me. I think 
that he has made amends.” 


^ C 5v0 * 


TIMBER-WOLF 


333 


wiped his slate clean/’ said Standing heartily. 
^‘Henceforth I am no enemy of his. But it is not of 
Deveril now that we must talk. Girl, can’t you see... 
“Am I blind ?” laughed Lynette happily. 


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